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PIECES OF EIGHT 

A SEQUENCE 

OF 

TWENTY FOUR WAR- SONNETS 

BY 

JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER 

Author of "Scorpio" 



1). S, BOARD OF TAX APPEALS J 
DIV.-^ DOCKET^.^^^:^^^ 

ADMITTED IN EVIDEMOE 

,./IAY3l 1932 

PET t TIO f lgfl'3 ^ 



£XHJB1Ti2.~-2- 

RP5P0N[>ENT'S 



Faoit indignatia versus. 

— Juvenal. 
Righteous wrath runs to rhyme. 

'Achilles' wrath to Greece the direful spring, 
Of woes unnumbered, Heavenly Goddess sing." 

— Homer's Iliad. (Pope's translation.) 



Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. 
A fine and noble thing for one's country 'tis to die. 



PALMETTO PRESS 

Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina 

TWENTY-FIVE CENTS 
Nineteen Hundi'ed anil Fourteen 






Copyright 

Palmetto Press 

1914 



DEC 26 1914 

©CI,A8911oS 



PROIvOOUK 



TO BRITISH CRITICS. 

Permit an Anglo-Saxon who has also the following 
strains in his veins — namely, — Welsh, Scotch, Scotch-Irish, 
French, Dutch and German, and whose progenitors sailed 
from Tenby, Wales, in 1710, and landed at Charleston, South 
Carolina — to unbosom himself upon the European situation. 
The request is admittedly a strange one, but hardly less so 
than the causes leading up to its inception. Six years ago 
the undersigned sent a slim volume of sonnets over here to 
be reviewed. Circumstances over Avhich he had no control 
prevented his being able to have same reviewed in America 
at that time. The London Academy^ by its gifted editor, 
presented him with a most complimentary notice. This notice 
will be found further on. The Academy^ August 8, 1908, 
was good enough to say that: "Keats has told us that they 
shall be accounted poet-kings who simply say the most heart- 
easing things. It may well be, therefore, that the author of the 
present volume of sonnets has no desire to be ranked among 
the poet-kings. For he certainly does not come to us with 
heartsease in his hand. On the contrary he prides himself 
(m the fact that he is a hard and terrible hitter. Indeed, he 
assures us that he has come to the conclusion that you can 
put a wicked man "to sleep" with a sonnet in pretty much 
the same way that a prize-fighter puts his opponent to sleep 
with a finished blow. * * * 

"THE DEVIL'S HORSESHOE." 

'A fecund sight for a philosopher — 

Rich as Golconda's mine in lessons rare — 

That gem-bedizen'd "horse-shoe" at th' Opera, 

Replete with costly hags and matrons fair! 

His votaresses doth Mammon there array, 

His Amazonian Phalanx dread to face! 

To Mammon there do they their homage pay! 

Spang'ld with jewels, satins, silks and lace, 

Crones whose old bosoms in their corsets creak; 

Beldams whose slightest glance would fright a horse; 

Ghouls — when they speak one hears the grave-mole squeak 

Their escorts parvenus of feature course, 

A rich array of Luxury and Vice! 

But, spite of them, the music's very nice.' 



PROLOGUE 



Here you have a knockout blow with a vengeance. 
The sonnet as a whole is not one which we can 
approve from a technical or a sentimental point of view, but 
it has points. Henley might have plumed himself on the line 
about the creaking corsets and the last line, a tour de force, 
in its way reminds us of the withering ironies of Byron. It 
is only fair to Mr. Chaloner to add that not all his son- 
nets are concerned with . . . general thumping. Some of them 
show the tenderer emotions proper to a poet. We like him 
best, however, in his character as metrical bruiser. He is 
always on the side of the angels even if he is frequently over 
vigorous; and his book is well worth possessing. We gather 
that he has undergone personal troubles of no light or of 
ordinary nature, and it is pleasant to note that, despite these 
troubles, he still retains a sane and reasonable outlook upon 
life, for when he likes he can be quite pleasantly humorous 
instead of acridly bitter." 

It is very meet and right that the discoverer — for that 
is what Lord Alfred Douglas— the then editor of the 
Academy — undoubtedly was — it is very meet and right that 
Lord Alfred Douglas — the descendant of that famous Mar- 
quis of Queensbury who compiled the ndes that formerly 
guided the mighty right of the peerless John L. Sullivan — 
of Boston, Massachusetts — the former champion of the world 
— and now control the dusky member of his formidable suc- 
cessor Jack Johnson — the terror of 'white hopes' — but only 
until a second John L. Sullivan shall arise, and put him down 
and out, for the count — it is very meet and right that the 
discoverer of the hardest metrical hitter America has as yet 
turned out, should be the lineal descendant of the Marquis 
of Queensbury. It is a case of "/yi. hoc s-U/no innces''^ with us. 
We at once printed the Acadenoifs review in the edition of 
"Scorpio" sent out for review to the American press; and 
consequently our work was treated on the strength thereof — 
with a respect^ — from the vast majority of critics, from ocean 
to ocean — North and South — which was highly satisfactory. 
Now, alas, the situation has changed. The very correct and 
desirable attitude of neutrality — advised and urged by Presi- 
dent Woodrow Wilson, concerning the European war — has 
closed the columns of newspapers North as well as South, 



PROLOGUE iii 



East as well as West against sonnets as Pro-Allies as the 
accompanying slim sheaf of sonnets — entitled "Pieces of 
Eight." "Pieces Of Eight" is the raison d''etre of this book. 
by that title.f 

"Pieces Of Eight'' — to be exact, the first eight sonnets 
comprising that sonnet sequence — was refused publication — al- 
though offered free — by the New York Herald., the New 
York American., and the Boston Advertiser. This could 
not have been owing to their lack of quality — for any one 
familiar with the rules governing the sonnet can see that they 
are correct iambi(^ pentameters — and, moreover, the Ameri- 
can and Advertiser had each voluntarily, and without sug- 
gestion from us, published some two or more sonnets from our 
pen — one of each of Avliich is to be found among the ex- 
tracts from American newspapers further- on. There was, 
therefore, nothing left for us — if we wanted to tempt fortune 
again concerning critical opinion on our Avork — but to send it 
abroad. 

In closing this lengthy prologue we shall emphasise the 
fact that nothing but the dire — the awful cataclysm — now 
unfolding itself on the field of Europe, and our desire to 
stand by civilization, truth and honour — as shown by regard 
for a nation's pledged word in a treaty — could have induced 
us to brave the possible storm of protest at the strength of 
our denunciations in "Pieces of Eight" and accompanying 
sonnets — or sullen silence of cold disapproval. As the afore- 
said extracts from, American criticisms indicate., we aim 
at the fierceness of Swift when we denounce. How far 
we fall below the standai-d of fierceness set forever and in all 
tongues — bar. possibly, only Juvenal. Voltaire and Lord By- 
ron — by the mighty Dean of St. Patrick's — is for others to 
judge. 



t'This sequence originally consisted of eight sonnets; when the 
title "Pieces Of Eight" would have been appropriate. But on Sep- 
tember sixteenth the author saw in the Richmond News-Leader the 
cabled leader from the London Time^ found in Appendix, page 54. This 
iSO delighted him that he could not feel easy in his mind until he had 
written sonnets Nine and Ten of this sequence which has since grown 
to twenty -four strictly war-sonnets; with three sonnets on nature 
added — by way of contrast — written May fourth, 1914. The book 
being on the press at the time he did not, however, change its name. — 
"Pieces Of Eight." 



PROLOGUE 



We simply draw attention to the fact that satirical de- 
nunciation is a legitimate form of literary and poetic expres- 
sion from the remote days of the Roman Juvenal. And that, 
as such, we demand, that Miss Nancy predilections against 
poetic strength of expression be — for the time being — held 
sternly in obeyance. 

In conclusion, as a historian of the most technical, and 
therefore difficult, form of historical composition, namely 
law — as a law-writer — which branch of legal practice has 
been honored by the great Blackstone — the Commentator on 
the Common Law — in the following words, namely : "the 
learned sages of the law" — as a historian we shall not refrain 
from hereby thanking God, that Great Britain, France and 
Eussia are bound by a tripartite agreement — the recent Proto- 
col of London : by which the peace of all is the peace of one — 
thereby enabling Great Britain and France to stand off the 
well meant, but ill-advised and unlearned effort at premature 
peace, between the belligerents; until Germany and Aus- 
tria — the provokers of this vast breach of the peace — have, 
in the now prophetic words of the late lamented Prince Bis- 
marck, been "Bled to pallor." For Great Britain may stand 
behind France and Russia, and say: "I cannot make peace 
until France and Russia — my allies — are satisfied. France 
wants Alsace and Lorraine returned her, and Russia has 
wants." France may then stand behind Russia and say: 
"After I receive back Alsace and Lorraine I cannot with- 
draw my hand from the plow of Bellona — of the Goddess 
of War — before my ally Russia is satisfied." And Great 
Britain, France and Russia will all inevitably and rightly 
demand, that heroic little Belgium be fully compensated for 
the dishonest and barbarous rape of her national dignity by 
German}^ 

It is a marvellous thing ^ the amalgam- of folly and hypoc- 
risy which makes up the thinhing cap of alas! hvt too m/iny 
Oif our oivn countrymen. 

Here we have the American press ringing the changes 
for years and years, for decade upon decade, upon "the folly 
and barbarity of European armaments. Crushing, as they 
do, the life-blood out of the l)one and sineAv of the European 
people — the working classes — by onerous taxation." Which 



PROLOGUE 



sonorous statemtient is as true as sonoi^us. And yet, when — as 
we firmly believe — the God of Battles — God, the "Man of 
War" — together with Jesus Christ — who came to bring "not 
peace put a sword" — have at last, after forty-four years, 
brought it to pass, that competitive armaments shall forever 
cease in Europe, and that the only armed European powers — 
of the very first class — shall be the allies — Great Britain, 
France and Russia — we find voices beginning to be raised 
on this side of the Athmtic for ])eace. and, therefore, for the 
continuance of the rery thing they have heen so self suffi- 
ciently sneering at for nearly ffty years — ^''hloated competi- 
tive armamen tsP^ 

Fortunately, Russia can \'ery well afford to wash her 
hands of American public opinion, after the impertinent 
American "butting-in" concerning Russia's internal govern- 
ment; concerning regulations governing the Jews. The long 
standing friendship between Russia and the United States was 
thereby shattered at a blow, and thereby Russia gained com- 
plete freedom from obligations of friendship towards 
America. Therefore there is small danger that Russia will 
heed the premature proposals for peace now being set on foot 
on this side — even if American "peace societies" have the bad 
taste, and assurance to thrust their advice upon a former 
friend, now grossly affronted by their own government in 
congress assembled. 

The premature peace movement Avas started by a certain 
Roumanian Jew — at a recent meeting in London — attended 
by a prominent political American Jew : who brought the 
premature peace microbe across the ocean with him : and set 
it going in Washington. 

Let premature peace get no finther— as sin iu-tnality, at 
least— than the "sooty bosom" — to cite Shakspearo — of a 
Roumanian Jew. 

J. A. (\. Richmond. Virginia. September 18, 1014. 

New York BernUl. Soptember 13, 1914. 

Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street. London, September 12, 1914. 

Here in the centre of the world's diplomacy, so far as the allies 
are concerned, it is impossible to understand the currency which has 
been apparently given in America to the thought that an early peace 
is possible. Tt is only conceivable that the terms in which the allies 
would consider peacp would be a surrender by thf" Kaiser on terms 
which the allies would dictate. 



vl PROLOGUE 



I gather from talks with the highest diplomatists and from the 
views of journalists from Russia, England and France that there 
can be no compromise. This idea is deep rooted. The cause of the 
alliance is one for common defence. The elemental issue at stake, in 
the view of the allies, is their destruction or the overthrow of German 
militarism. I have heard no other suggestion made either by the 
press or by diplomatists since the war began, but that the war must 
continue until the Kaiser's power is permanently dissipated. 

England says there must be an end to it. Russia says there must 
be an end to it. France says there must be an end to it. There is 
no "peace at any price" element in any of these countries. The states- 
man who would make a suggestion of peace now would call down ou 
his head such a storm of wrath that he would be glad to seek exile 
Therefore it has been with astonishment that the friends of Oscar 
S. Straus here read that he has been busy trying to find some basis 
for peace. 

Attitude of the Allies. 

Mr. Straus, when here, had exceptional facilities to ascertain the 
allies' opinions exactly. As I have stated before, he had a confidential 
talk with Sir Edward Grey and knew that Great Britain's purpose in 
going to war was to have restored the law of nations which the Kaiser 
nullified in regarding treaties as "Scraps of paper" and that Great 
Britain would not cease to fight so long as the allies held together 
and could put their armies in the field. 

This would be the attitude of the allies if Germany had continued 
her success before Paris, had defeated and routed the allies' aimies, 
had taken Paris, had driven the Russians out of East Prussia, had in- 
vaded Russia with every prospect of reaching Petrograd and had 
rained bombs on London. 

What folly then to say there is immediate prospect of peace. 

English statesmen with whom I have talked decline to think of 
any form of peac " short of the abdication of the Kaiser when Germany 
is losing on land and is afraid to fight on the sea. 

In response to the Herald's request for a statement of the views 
abroad regarding the prospects of peace and what would be the 
Kaiser's terms in case he won, and what would be the allies' terms 
in case they won, I can only say in the language of the fighting Irish- 
man, "We'll talk about dividin' the property after we are dead." 

But it would seem idle to discuss the question of war settlements 
v/hen every energy is being exerted by England, France and Russia 
to keep the war going for one, two or three years, or soi long as is 
necessary to overcome the Teutons. 

England has practically raised her first half million men and is 
now raising a second half million. When that is complete she will 
begin on her second million and keep it going. It is openly admitted 
that she must keep a million men in Europe until peace is signed. 
The colonies already are prepared to quadruple their first offers. 
Russia has just begun to fight and her army is growing at the rate 
of one hundred thousand men a day, as distant points send in their 
quotas. This she will continue indefinitely. As for France, youths 
who ordinarily would not be called for military duty until this winter 
are now under training. These soon will make a place for a yet 
younger line. 



PROLOGUE vii 



Expect a Long War. 

It is a long war these allies are expecting, but they are ready, so 
that until it is won life will not be worth living. When the bill 
comes to be paid either Germany, Austria-Hungary or the allies will 
be the length of a generation in paying it. 

I write thus fully about the situation in order that America may 
regain the point of view which has been obscured. Philanthropists, 
peace advocates and reformed armor-plate makers may get their 
fingers burned if they meddle with this matter which obviously they 
do not understand. The deep resolve of the allies is not only branded 
in it is burned to the bone. 

German militarism must go. That is a requisite of the restoration 
of peace from the English, Russian and French point of view. The 
allies firmly believe that in taking this unalterable stand they are 
workincf for the end of war. 



viii PROLOGUE 



Punch, London, September 2, 1914. 

THE AVENGERS. 

(To our Soldiers in the field.) 



Not this high thought alone shall brace your thews 

To trampie under heel those vandal hordes 
Who laugh when blood of mother and babe imbues 
Thier damned craven swords. 

But here must be hot passion, white of flame. 

Pure hate of this unutterable wrong, 
Sheer wrath for Christendom so sunlv in shame. 
To make you trebly strong. 

These smoking hearths of fair and peaceful lands, 

This reeking trail of deeds abhorred of Hell, 
They cry aloud for vengeance at your hands. 
Ruthless and swift and fell. 

Strike, then — and spare not — for the innocent dead 
Who lie there, stark beneath the weeping skies. 

As though you saw your dearest in their stead 
Butchered before your eyes. 



On each, without distinction, worst or hest. 

Fouled 1)]/ a nation's crime, one doom must fall; 
Be yon> its instrument, and leave the rest 

To God, the Judge of all. 

Let it be said of you. when sounds at length 

Over the final field the victor's strain : — 
"They struck at infamy with all their strength. 

And earth is clean again !" O. S. 

KKHATA. 

Page I. Sonnet, "The Devil's Horseshoe," line 12, "course" should 

be "coarse." 
Page 33, same sonnet, same correction. 

Page VIIL first verse, last line, "Thier" should be "Their." 
Page 30. Trilogy should be properly spelled. 

Sonnet Eight, line fi, "Brother-in-arms" should be "Brothers-in- 
arms." 
Sonnet Fourteen, line 10, "England" should be "Britain." 
Sonnet Twenty-one, last line. Peace-disturbers should be properly 

spelled. 
Sonnet Twenty-two, line 3, "shows" should be "shadows." 
Sonnet Twenty-nine, line 7, "ere" sliould be "e'er." 
Sonnet Twenty-nine, lines 7 and 8 should be transposed. 
Sonnet Twenty-nine, line 14, "manliood" should be "manhood." 
Sonnet Two, page 43, lines 4 and 8, there should be no "i" in 



PIECES OF EIGHT 

A SEQUENCE OF TWENTY FOUR WAR-SONNETS 

Entitled 
The Swine of the Gadarenes 

"So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out suffer 
us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them. Go. 
And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine; 
and behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place 
into the sea and perished in the waters." — St. Matthew viii: 31-32. 

"This effort was frustrated by the steadiness and skill with which 
the British retirement was conducted, and as on the previous day, 
losses far in excess of anything suffered by us were inflicted on the 
enemy, who, in dense formation and in enormous masses, marched 
forward again and yet again to storm the British lines. 

"In Landrecies alone, on the 25th, a German infantry brigade 
advanced In close order into a narrow street, and our machine guns 
were brought to bear on this target from the end of the town. The 
head of the column was swept away. A frightful panic ensued, and 
it is estimated that 800 or 900 dead and wounded Germans were left 
in this street alone." — Lord Kitchener's statement, "Times-Dispatch," 
Richmond, Virginia, August 31, 1914. 

Sonnet One 

PIG-STICKING. 

or 

THE HUNT IS UP. 

"The Hunt is up! Who'll chase the boar to-day? 
The Hunt is up! Who'll at pig-sticking play? 

Tantivy! Tantivy! Away!" — Hunting Song. 

The swine o' th' Gadarenes are here once more 
That demon-haunted herd now scour the earth 
Led by Bill William Two, their great wild boar 
Their antics 'pon my soul give cause for mirth ! 
In massed formation do they charge pell Tiiell! 
Showing less judgment than a herd of swine 
in massed formation are they sent to Hell— 
That's where dead Germans go I dare opine. 
How many wild boars will there soon be left 
To meet the Cossacks crowding on their rear, 
While French and English harry right and left 
With skill and coolness plying wild boar spear? 
The German Empire now doth hurry on 
To perish V tW waters of ohlivion! 



J. A. C, "The Merry Mills," Cobham, Albemarle County, Virginia. 

September First, 1914. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 



Sonnet Two 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



THE KAISER t 

or 
THE CURSE. 

Thou treaty-breaking perjured potentate! 
Blaspheming with thy lips the God of Truth 
Each time that thou dost dare asseverate 
That "(jod is on thy side" — thou great uncouth! 
The fate of Ananias hangs o'er thee 
rhat sword of Damocles o'er thee suspends 
And in the end thou shalt flat ruined be 
When in the reehn^mg thou dost pay amends. 
Thy mighty ancestor Frederick the Great 
Turns in his grave at sight of thy foul deed 
Which makes all true men the name German hate 
As synonym for bloodshed and for greed. 
My German hlood dotU curse thee to deep Hell 
A curse as black as rhyme and reason spell. 

September First, 1914. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 



Sonnet Three 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



A GERMAN VERSION OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN, f 

"Many of the Germans landed after the battle of the British ships 
were wounded by revolver bullets. It is declared the revolvers were 
used by German officers to prevent their men surrendering to the 
British boats, which had put off to save their drowning opponents. 
Some of the boats lowered to the rescue of the Germans, it is said, 
were fired on by German cruisers." 

"The British destroyers exposed themselves to considerable risk 
in endeavoring to save as many as possible of the German seamen, 
British officers present vouch for the fact that the German officers 
were observed firing at their own men in the water with pistols, and 
that several were shot before their eyes." 

"Under these peculiar circumstances, a destroyer was actually 
picking up wounded with boats when she was driven off by the ap- 
proach of another German cruiser, and had to leave two of her boats 
containing one officer and nine men behind. It was feared these 
would be made prisoners, but happily a submarine arrived and brought 
the British party home." — "Times-Dispatch," August 31, 1914. 



Thy private-miirdTiniT ruffian officersf 

Show to what depths a learned race can sink 

The Calling grand of Arms their action shirs 

'Mongst soldiers makes the name of German stink/ 

Who ever heard in wars of any age — 

Ancient or modern or since time began — 

Of oificers on soldiers venting rage — 

Rage at defeat'^ Not once in Hist'ry's span! 

And yet your ruffians murdered their oum men 

When they did flounder in the North Sea cold — 

Their act did curdle th' ink upon my pen — 

Lest they be rescued by the Britons bold. 

Of all the acts of martial infamy — 

So help me God — this act the King--Pin be! 

September First, 1914. 



tOn this occasion it was sailors who were shot — as they swam 
for their lives — by their officers, who nobly refrained from shooting 
themselves, however, to avoid the disgrace of capture — as Japanese 
officers have frequently done. Biit immediately prior to the war, a 
case of "private-murdering" was on the journalistic tapis in Deutch- 
land; and even excited some adverse criticism by the tyranny-loving 
press of that tyranny-ridden country — bar only some liberty-loving 
socialists therein. An officer and a sergeant between them had mur- 
dered a private — a very common occurrence in German discipline — 
strange to say a court-martial gave the murderers two years each in 
a fortress, instead of acquitting them — as is usually the case. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 



Sonnet Pour 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



DISARMAMENT, f 

Beware the Manes of the Belgae dread I 
These terrors of all tyrants since old Eome — 
Beware the ghosts of Liege' heroic dead 
Beware ths reclc'ning that doth steady come! 
Beware when France and Russia on thee fall, 
Supported by the British bull-dogs roused! 
Call then upon thy friend — on. Turlvey call! 
Thus Turk and Teuton will be charnel-housed. 
Then Europe will be freed at one fell swoop 
From Prussia, Austria, foul morall'd Turk, 
T.'ien of the Hosts of Sin the crests will droop 
Dark clouded by defeat and ruin's murk. 
The Turk from Europe then will sio'ift be driven 
And fram Teuton hand arms for ever rivenP 

September First. 1914. 



tThe heroic spirit displayed by the Belgians in defence of their 
country and their honour, against the brutal invading Germans, dates 
from remote antiquity. One of the members of the royal house of 
the Batavians — the Belgae or Belgians — by name Claudius C'ivilis — In 
the first century of the Christian era was the only foreigner ever to 
successfully revolt against the Roman Empire at the height of its 
glory and power. In the days of the great Roman Emperor Vespa- 
sian — before becoming EJmperor — while plotting for power — opposing 
the then Emperor Vitellius — before he fought his way to the purple — 
this stirring and unique event occurred. So stirring so unique is it 
that we have inserted from the great Roman Historian Tacitus — 
Church and Brodribb's translation (Macmillan) a spirited description 
of the episode — in the appendix. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 



Sonnet Five 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



TO THE GEKMAX ARMY OFFICERS, f 

New York Herald, Friday, September 4, 1914. 

NEUTRALITY AND OTHER THINGS. 

If correspondents of English newspapers are really cabling that 
the United States is getting ready to cast aside its neutrality and 
get into the European fray — well, all that need be said is that the 
Herald's often expressed opinion of the irresponsibility of English 
corresondents finds renewed vindication. 

The United States government is neutral and is going to stay 
neutral. The American people are politically neutral and intend to 
remain so, but this neutrality is not preventing their doing a good 
deal of thinking nor should it. 

What are they to think when they are told that Belgian prisoners 
of war, hound in shackles, have been put to work in the fields of 
Germany. Mr. Thomas McGuire, of Chicago, just returned from 
Germany and with many pleasant things to tell of the way the people 
of that country are meeting the hardships entailed by war, says he 
witnessed this spectacle. Are not other Americana very likely to see 
in it a return to the methods of the barbarians whose practice it was 
to make slaves of their prisoners of war? 

And what are Americans to think of the testimony borne by Mrs. 
Herman H. Harjes, one of the most prominent American women in 
Paris, who as is told in an Associated Press despatch, led in the work 
of giving relief to Belgian refugees arriving in Paris and who said: 

"I saw many boys with both their hands cut off to make it im- 
possible for them, to carry a gun.''' 

Who were your Mothers? The foul hags of Hell? 

And who your Fathers? WhoF Fiends incarnate? 

And do your sisters, prithee, harlot spell? 

The premise to this sonnet thus I state. 

How otherwise could ye foul do a thing 

That's left to negroes wild, and savages? 

Outrage so ghastly that the world doth ring 

With your most Hellish Belgian i-avages ! 

Were justice to be done your Kaiser'd fall 

He and his Hellish brood would be cut of 

And your flayed hides ^vould form their funeral pall 

In coldest frame I write — not lightsome scoff. 

Ye act like a band of dnmken Malays 

Who as acts of God rape and arson appraise. 

Richmond, Virginia, September Fifth, 1914. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 



Sonnet Six 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



''UNCLEAN ! UNCLEAN ! " f 

Scrofulous leperf with a withered arm — 

Bearing the blight of God upon thy head — 

With litter of dachshund whelps tliouds't take alarm 

Bids' t guess the things that hover overhead! 

How w^oulds't thou like to bow upon the block 

To which a former lying king went down? 

A king who kingly honour foul did mock 

As much as thou — thou cnpfled German clown. 

Thou Jack-of-all-trades who doth master none 

Yet doth thy gulls of subjects deep flim-flam, 

K'en wielding — crown'd jacka,ss — maestro'' s baton 

Iho'n music thou knows't not "bullsfoof* from "damn"fft 

Corruj^t of blood as thou art foul of heart 

To thee and litter history says: '''Depart.'''' 

September Fifth, 1914. 



t"A man's physical shortcomings are immune from attaclc accord- 
ing to the Rules of Poetic War. But when that man — as has William 
II. — raises the black flag — to all intents and purposes — as his out- 
rages in Belgium indicate — poetry replies in kind, and also raises 
the black flag. 

tMoral. not Asiatic, leprosy, of course is meant. 

ttfThe life-long study of orchestral conducting is here meant. 



PIECES OF BIGHT 



Sonnet Seven 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



"GET OFF!" SAID GENERAL JOFFRE. f 

The Last Inroad Of The Barbarians To Be Forever 

Checked, 

Or 

History Repeats Itself. 

One Briton bold two Germans equal be 

One Frenchmans' equal to two Sourkraut 

The truth of this full easy is to see 

Fro' th' way the allies put the Teutons out! 

These gross Sausage-Eaters surely have no show — 

Less chance than snowball in fell hottest Hell ! 

So off of France' fair soil they swift must go 

Or hlaek disaster shall their sojourn spell! 

As Cimbri and as Teutons once, of old. 

By Marius were scattered to their bogs 

So General Joffre doth '"''have the dead icood''"' cold 

Upon these raging grunting Teuton hogs!f 

As Rome did hold these porkers to their fens 

So th' allies e''er shall herd them in their pens. 

September Seventh, 1914. 



tGriinting gross German of the baser Deutch. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 



Sonnet Eight 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



LA BELLE ALLIANCE. 

Now by the lips of those ye love, 
Fair gentlemen of France, 
Charge for the Golden Lillies! 
Upon them with the lance! 

— King Henry of Navarre, in Lord Macaulay's poem. 

The Lion and the Lilies now once more 

Range the enchanted fields of fairy France! 

Eecalling the grim days of Agincourt 

The plume of mail'd Imight and the war-horse' prance. 

But now in friendship do these mighty names 

Brother-in-arms fierce charge the common foe — 

The Vandal fell who civilization shames 

The Goth and Hun vile harbingers of woe. 

And as the tide of battle ebbs and flows 

A sound is heard that cometh from afar 

O'er shriek of shrapnel and o'er clash of blows 

The war-cry of the legions of the Tsar! 

Between these edges of Fate's dread millstone 

To ruin and defeat the Goth goes down ! 

September Ninth, 1914. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 



Sonnet Nine 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES 



THE QUEEN OF THE WESTEKN WOELD 

To 

THE THREE DOMINANT POWERS OF THE REST 

OF THE WORLD. 

Brittania, La Belle France, and Russia vast 
Columbia thanks thee for thy work to-day- 
Thanks that ye have the die of battle cast 
And that your legions gather for the fray 
In conquering the German Frankenstein — 
That monster armed by Krupp and backed by Hell — 
Ye do an act that smacks of the sublime 
Ye do an act that pleaseth me full well. 
For had ye not the Teuton ta'en in time 
That bloody task I might not well forego 
But would tW Atlantic'^ s looves incarnadine 
Defending the grand doctrine of Monroe.f 
I thank thee, sisters fair, for thy fair aid 
Here's speedy rest in Unter Den Linden^s shade! 

September Fifteenth, 1914. 

tGermaiiy was not only unique in being the only European Fower 
not practically recognizing the Monroe Doctrine, but Germany had 
the audacity to challenge same. 



10 PIECES OF EIGHT 

Sonnet Ten 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



THE PAECAE. 

And when ye have the monster on his back 

Emasculate him in the name of Peace ! 

Cut deep and strong so he the means may lack 

To ravish Liberty. Give him surcease. 

Virility with him is but a snare 

A pitfall digged amidst the gins of sin 

In which his lustful soul plumps unware 

Knows not whereat he is — until — he's in. 

Shear from him arms by sea and arms by land 

Of Army and Navy coMrate at one cut! 

To honest toil he then can turn his hand 

And burn no more his brutal lust to glut. 

A glorious crown my sisters hand I thee ! 

/ hail thee the Three Fates — the Sisters Three. 

September Fifteenth, 1914. 



PIECES OFEIGHT 11 

Sonnet Eleven 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



THE EMPIRE, f 
or 
THE GATHERING--CRY.- 

Thy stalwart sons do gather to thy call : 

All quarters of the globe give up their toll 

And on the brutal foe like hull-dogs fall 

Fiery as race-horse charging for the goal ! 

Proud am I that my veins do course thy blood 

Proud am I that my home's beyond the sea — 

Home o' my Fathers — be it understood — 

For Columbia's the home that shelters me. 

Hurrah! For th' Anglo-Saxon and the Celt! 

Hurrah ! For Scotch — for Irish — and for Welsh ! 

Ruin to th' foe is by that "Hurrah" spelt ! 

Hell, Death and brimstone doth that shrapnel helchW 

The English-spealcing race for aye is one 

And all who brave it to defeat go down! 

September Nineteenth, 1014. 

tThe above sonnet was inspired by the laconic remark to me 
day before yesterday at my country-seat, in Albemarle county, Vir- 
ginia, "The Merry Mills," of an Englishman — a member of my office 
force — the son of a Colonel in the British army, deceased — to-wit: 
"The Empire's coming to the fronfi well." 

ttThe variant — to meet the requirements of the "non-conformist 
conscience" — to that line is as follows — "Death and destruction doth 
that shrapnel belch!" 



12 PIECES OF EIGHT 

Sonnet Twelve 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES.f 



To Jews and Gentiles, Bond and Free, And all Other 
Members and Supporters of Premature- Peace Societies: 
Greeting! 

iTe piffling little "squirts" that drape the earth — 

Limp's maccaroni or spaghetti slim — 

Your antics 'pon my soul are cause for mirth 

Your antics make a man of humour grin. 

Your antics show "w^hat fools these mortals be" 

Your antics show what cowards can be found 

In big America — "land of the free" — 

And how o'er her vasty plains do bounders hound! 

Tne nation's Fool-Killer will make you rue 

His gun is cocked and primed and deadly aimed ! 

His bird-shot doth he now inject in you 

Whereby your ample buttocks are well maimed. 

What should I do were there not fools to shoot 

And lying fakers who the tin horn toot ! 

September Twenty-first, 1914. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 13 



Sonnet Thirteen 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



TO PROFESSOR HUGO MONSTERBURGf 

Professor of Physchology at Harvard University 

or 

GIVE A DOG ENOUGH ROPE AND HE'LL HANG 

HIMSELF 

For years I've laughed at thy Psychology 

With which you fool the youth of Harvard fair 

Back-number'd dry-as-dust rot-gut it be 

Enough to make Emanuel Kant blank stare. 

Your folly too was dashed with knavery — 

A trickster you as ere made "shell-game" whirl — 

Who to's low soul doth bow in slaver v 

Who now doth cringe and now doth big bluff hurl — 

But that — vile Hessian — thoud'st dare undertake 

To sow the seeds of discord in my land 

To start a hate which nought but blood may slake 

Proves you a Tnotister by all patriots bann'd ! 

Where'd German-Americans be to-day 

If American- Americans gave play? 

September Twenty-second, 1914. 

tThe Times-Dispatch, September 22, 1914. 

FOOLISHNESS OF A LEARNED MAN. 

Professor Hugo Munsterburg, of Harvard, who has already lost 
the confidence of the American people, if he has not destroyed utterly 
his usefulness as an instructor of American youth, has just intimated 
that the people of the United States are a flock of sheep, and incap- 
able of exercising sensible judgment. Having thus classified us, he is 
quoted as making the remarkable declaration that, unless they revise 
their opinions and show a greater neutrality toward the warring 
nations, 2,500,000 citizens of German descent will punish the country 
at the polls at the next election. 

In other words, they are going to vote as Germans, and not as 
citizens of the country in which they exercise the right of suffrage. 



14 PIECES OFBIGHT 

Sonnet Fourteen 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



LIEGE. 



Hail Liege heroic city of the dead ! 

Hail tomb of heroes sacred for all time! 

Until all tombs shall render up their dead 

Until the Trump of Doom and end of Time. 

Not since the days of wild Thermopylae 

Not since, the slaughter wild of that dread pass 

Did Hist'ry such Barbarian slaughter see 

As thy dread marksmen forced to come to pass. 

As Leonidas did check Barbaric tide 

Which later to annihilation came 

So Liege the hands o' th' Hell-doomed Kaiser tied 

Till France and England to the battle came. 

Horatius at the bridge you stayed the war! 

Till upon doomed Germania fell the Tsar. 

September Twenty-second, 1914. 



PIECES OFEIGHT 15 

Sonnet Fifteen. 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



LA P^EANCE 

I. 

LE CODE NAPOLEON 

Belle France saint ! Pays de Liberte ! 

Belle France salut ! L'autel de la Justice ! 

Pays de ma parente Charlotte de Corday 

Pour laquelle elle a subi le dernier supplice. 

Sous le drapeau Franqais la raison regne 

JVlaniant comme sceptre la logique Latine 

Sur votre belle race la logique regne supreme 

Comme decrets du Livre sombre du Destin — commes ces lignes ! 

L'Anglo-Saxon et nous nous adorons la loi 

Belle chose — mais a la logique — secondaire ! 

Comme avocat je dis qa de bonne foi 

Je dis ga tout franchement — suis-je temeraire? 

Par moi la Verite frappe comme I'eclair 

De Dieu ! Ne connaissant ni bornes ni frcntieres. 

September Twenty-sixth, 1914. 



16 PIECE SOFEIGHT 

Sonnet Sixteen. 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



LA FRANCE 

II. 

LE REVEILLE 

L'esprit de la Vieille Garde s'eveille en France 
L'esprit de la Grande Armee parcoure les rangs 
Sur les baionettes les rayons joyeuses dansent! 
On entend le pas de charge et V rataplan! 
L'epoque de la gloire est arrivee encore 
Apres des annees sombres de patience dure 
Patience qui pour recolte a le pouvoir 
Fonde sur la victoire — la victoire sure! 
Dans les annees tristes j'ai habite Paris — 
Les annees tristes de la France isolee — 
Des lors quelle difference ! Le grand aujourd'hui ! 
La Grande Bretagne et la Russie allices! 
Vive la belle France ! Pays de ma jennesse ! 
Je vous souhaite la gloire^ 'po\ivoh\ rir-hesses! 

September Twenty-sixth, 1914. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 17 



Sonnet Seventeen 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



LA FRANCE 

in. 

LA REVANCHE 

Ou 

L'AIGLE DE LA GUERRE. 

Sur les rayons mordants des baionettes 

Les ailes etendues je poiisse des cris de guerre! — 

Sur mes braves enfants les soldats je guets 

Sur la tonnerre des canons — des fusils 1' eclair! — 

L' Empereur me connait bien — me suivi loin ! 

L' Empereur il m'aimait bien — il nvahne encore! 

J 'eta is I'oiseau fatal de son destin 

De tous mes proteges c'est U Empereur que j 'adore. — 

La France purifiee par les feux de la defaite 

Se forme pour la charge plus hardis encore 

Ne connaissant jamais le mot retraite 

Ne connaissant que les mots Victoire ! La Gloire ! 

En avant ! La belle France ! En avant et sans peur ! 

Car entre mes ailes se tient Vesprit de VEmpereur. 

"The Merry Mills," Cobham, Albemarle County, Virginia, 

October Fourth, 1914. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 



Sonnet Eighteen 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



"WAE IS HELL" 

General Tecumseh Sherman, The Military Incendiarist of 
Atlanta, Georgia. 

"I came not to send peace but a sword." — Jesus Christ. 

War's only Hell when by a Hellyon waged 

Such as were you — you rank Barbarian. 

In viewing you we see a savage "staged" 

A wrinkled, savage, dry old Indian. 

Such was thy face — a thing to fright a horse! 

Such was thy soul — a smould'ring petty Hell 

Such were thy features rude, abrupt and coarse 

In writing thus we just frank Hist'ry spell. 

Sans arson war is death upon the field 

The Field of Honour, and a noble end ! 

For after all, we all to Death must yield 

And how more nobly may one one's life spend? 

"Greater love hath no man" — once was softly saidf 

By One who for the world bowed down His head. 

Richmond, Va., September Twenty-seventh, 1914. 



tGreater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his 
life for his friends." — Jesus Christ, St. John xv., 13. 



PIECESOFEIGHT 19 

Sonnet Nineteen 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



NEW YORK AMERICAN AND EVENING JOURNAL. 



And id hoc genus omne who for palpably selfish ends yell 
for premature-peace in Europe. f 

Ye pimps and panders of the daily press 
Pimping your vicious wares e'en day by day 
Ye make me smile — e'en laugh — I must confess 
The way ye do your blooming public "play" 
Flim-flam and buncombe are your stock in trade 
"Hot-air"-hypocrisy thy longest suit 
In truth the fact is you're a sorry jade 
A strumpet inle — a filthy vicious brute. 
Exceptions to this rule there are of course 
Exceptions to all rules of course there be 
But your drole antics cause mirth in a horse 
Make a grim gelding grin right merrily! 
Eef orm ye Avicked ! 'Ware the flames of Hell ! 
The Devil shame and aim the truth to tell. 

September Twenty-seventh, 1914. 

tMr. W. R. Hearse — we spell it this way intentionally — since his 
character acts as funeral casket for his vaulting political hopes — 
approaches his readers with an olive branch extended in his left 
hand — to which is attached a stuffed Dove of Peace — this for prema- 
ture peace in Europe — while in his ugly right hand is clutched — 
behind his back — the treacherous creese of the Malay — this for war 
in Mexico, nobly striving to shake off the yoke of Mammon as repre- 
sented by the Haciendado Ring and other Huertistas. Mr. Hearse 
we are informed owns rather a large tract of land In Mexico. Eh! 
What! And also prints a German edition of the Evening Journal. 
Eh! What! 



20 PIECESOF BIGHT 



Sonnet Twenty 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



PAX EOMANA 

(The Roman Peace) 

I. 

THE ALLIES. 

We are for peace — the deepest ever seen — 

The peace that shone in Gibbon's "Golden Age"t 

The age o' th' mighty Antonines I ween 

The grandest peace e'er seen upon world's stage! 

But how, fair reader, was said peace attained? 

By "Peace-Societies"? / wot not well. 

For the skilled Roman short sword swiftly stained 

In rebel's blood did Pax Romana spell! 

Thus only may the world have peace to-day 

Thus surely History repeats herself 

The Heirs o' th' Roman Power must hold sway 

0''er wicked nations luhose pursuit is self 

By th' Allies with Columbia combined 

The Pax Romana amply is defined. 

September Twenty-seventh, 1914. 



V The Author of the "Decline and Fall" said, in effect, that the 
nearest approach to the "Golden Age" was that of the Roman Em- 
perors, known as the Antonines. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 21 



Sonnet Twenty-one 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



PAX ROMANA 

II. 

THE GREAT QUADRILATERAL 

or 
THE POLICE OF THE WORLD. 

The Allies will suppress Teuton and Hun 

And hold them suppressed till the crack o' dcjom 

This is as sure as tho' by Fate t' were spun 

Or had been uttered in a Rimic rune. 

Th' Armies and Navies of the allies then 

Will with Columbia's hold conference 

And at the Hague will then — ^by stoke of pen — 

Be signed what's needed for the world's defence. 
Defence from what? From Teuton-Hun revolt 
Or villain Turk — that hlot^ on Nature'' s face! 
Thus Peace policed is by War's thunderbolt — 
Thus only surely lifts Her smiling face. 
LTnto this Quadrilateral supreme 
Must peace-diturbors bow their crests, I ween. 

September Twenty-seventh, 1914. 



22 PIECES OF EIGHT 

Sonnet Twenty-two 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



PAX ROMANA f 

in. 



Eespectfully submitted to The Hague. 

We mean allies in peace not in dread war — 

'Tis after this war's o'er these things will be — 

Coming events cast shows broad before 

As Historian said shadows do we see 

'I'hen will be made an end of bomb-dropping 

That coward, murd'rous, fiendish work of Hell 

'Which hindeth in a common hloody 'ring 

The soldier vnth his loife and child as well! 

Then will be made an end of submarine 

That human-shark that stabbeth hid frim sight — 

Then the old days of sea-fights may be seen 

When ships-of-ivar will leave their fOrts and jight! 

Machine-gun, two, from war would we discharge 

Less slaughter then would come on bayonet charge. 

September Twenty-seventh, 1914. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 23 

Sonnet Twenty-three 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



LA RUSSIE 

Salut! Ancienne amie des Etats-Unis — 

Brave et loyale pour ime centaine d'annees. 

Par voire bras fort le voleiir est puni — 

Et la Liberte, la Justice couronnees! 

Pour les AlJemands c'est une chose sombre — funeste! 

Pour les Allemands ga porte le grand malheur, 

Cette "Querelle d'Allemand" maniee de main si leste — 

Finira pour cux dans une debacle d'^horreur! 

J 'attends le jour quand vos Cosaques furibonds — 

Supportes par votre infanterie swperhe — 

Sautiront sur les Allemands comme tigres — d\in bond! 

Et les ecraseront a plat ventre sur Vher'he! 

Vive la Eussie! Pays vaste^ — mysterieux 

Ou le peuple reveur sont brave comme pieux. 

The Merry Mills, October Fifth, 1914. 



24 PIECES OF EIGHT 

Sonnet Twenty-four 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



LES BELGES 

Ou 
FORT (JOMME LA MORT 

Nation d'heros ! Des homines fiers, superbes et forts — 

Qui pour La Patrie versez votre sang comme I'eau 

Fort pour la Liberte — fort comme la Mort — 

Salut Beiges heroiques! Salut heros! 

Quand les Allemands sauvages — ces hommes immondes — 

Ces ravisseurs d'enfants — ces spadassins ! 

Quittant leurs deserts et leurs forets profondes — 

Tachaient d'attaquer la France d'une maniere sous main — 

Vous aves tomhe sur cette horde Barhare 

Conmne les Spartiates a hellc Thermopylae! 

Et I'histoire sonne pour vous cette grande fanfare 

'"''Flcau de Tyrants! UEpee de Llherte''' — 

Vive la Belgique ! L'arene heroique de I'Europe — 

Belle inspiration pour poesie et trope. 

October Fifth, 1914. 



PIECESOF EIGHT 25 

Sonnet Twenty-five 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



THE BELGIANS 

or 

STRONG AS DEATH. 

Nation of heroes I IVIen proud, superb and strong 

Who for Liberty like water pour your blood! 

"Strong as Death for Liberty!" is your war-song. 

'■''Strong as our faith in Jesus Christ His roodP 

When the wild Germans — fiendish savages — 

These ravishers of children and bravos 

Quitted their deserts bent on ravages 

And tried to rape fair France hut dodge her blows 

You fell upon their vast Barbaric horde 

And piled their carcasses e'en mountain high ! 

For which Fame's trump doth ye this blast accord 

'"'' Scourge of all tyrants! Sword of Liberty P'' 

"Europe's arena for fierce deeds of War!" 

Shines o'er fair Belgium as her fated star. 

October Sixth, 1914. 



26 PIECES OF EIGHT 

Sonnet Twenty-six 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



EIJSSIA. 



Hail ancient friend of the United States 

Loyal and true for a full century. 

Fortune — by Victory — thee felicitates 

By your strong arm the thief we punished see. 

But for Germany this is a fatal thing 

Of German hopes it tolls the funeral knell 

Swift retribution for her crimes doth bring 

And 02)e8 the jaws af Death and flaimng Hell! 

God speed the day when your dauntless Cossacks 

Supported by your foot which none surpass 

With tiger's syring lay Germans on their hacks 

And triumphant gaze whilst the life-blood doth pass. 

May God bless Russia ! Vast — mysterious 

Nation devout! Brave, dreamy and serious. 

October Sixth, 1914. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 27 

Sonnet Twenty-seven 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



"REVENGE!" 

or 

THE EAGLE OF WAR. 

O'er th' biting beams of the bayonet's gleam 
With talons distended and wings wide spread 
O'er my dauntless soldiers exultant / scream 
Whilst shriek of shrapnel is heard overhead. 
Napoleon knew me and followed me far 
Napoleon deep loved me — he loves me yet 
I flew before him 'neath his fated star 
Of all my lovers him I ne'er forget ! 
Fair France purified by defeat i' th' past 
Noto forms for the charge more dauntless than e^er 
Now are heard the sweet words: ''''Revenge! And at lastP'' 
Far blown by bugles o'er th' death-laden air 
Charge! My fair France, Charge! Charge to victory! 
For 'twixt my pinions you Napoleon see. 

October Sixth, 1914. 



28 PIECES OF EIGHT 

Sonnet Twenty-eight 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



PRZEMYSL. 

Przemysl is a word to conjure with 

A hoodoo potent hirketh in said word 

That word doth reek with African voodoo pith 

For th' Austrian Empire 'tis Th' Avenger's sword. 

He draws that word and fierce battalions fall ! 

He waves that word and Army Corps go down ! 

Its merest whisper doth the world appall — 

Of Austro-Himgary spells dying groan. 

A very shibboleth said word stands forth ! 

An open sesame to fiercest Hell 

The slogan of the legions of the North 

A slogan that the Tsar's troops answer well ! 

Przemysl what the Dyvvyl thou dost mean 

Calls on Omniscience to solve out I ween. 

Richmond, Virginia, Sunday, November 15, 1914. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 29 

Sonnet Twenty-nine 

THE SWINE OF THE GADARENES. 



FIELD MARSHAL. LORD ROBERTS, DEAD AT 
THE FRONT, NOVEMBER, 1914. 

"Old John of Gaunt time honoured Lancaster." — SJiakspeare. 

Old John of Gaunt was incarnate in thee 
Thou stark old warrior and soldier fine! 
With prophet's eye thou didst the future see 
And foretold Britahvs ijenl line hy line. 
You saw the cloud that hovered in the East 
You saw the danger of invasion dire 
Hence to armed Britain didst thou ere aspire. 
Hence to warn Britain hast thou never ceased 
Thy voice did cry in wilderness alone! 
Thy people slept the sleep of Laish the lostf 
Now for their folly do they dear atone 
Now do they train armed millions — ah ! the cost 
Old hero! Thy wise words are writ in Ijlood! 
Hereafter armed will he British manhood. 

Richmond, Virginia, November sixteenth, 1914. 



iThe Book of Judges, xviii, 7 and 27. 



30 PIECESOFEIGHT 



L'Knvoi 



A TRIOLOGY 

OP 

SONNETS TO NATURE 

Sonnet Thirty 

THE SUNSET HOUR* 

or 

EVEN-SONG. 

"The light that never was on land or sea." — Wordsworth. 

There is an hour in every breathing day 

When our dark world doth take on fairy hues 

When tears and blood — our heritasfe of clay — 

The magic tints of sunset doth suffuse. 

Then doth the soul refresh herself once more 

And draw fresh courage for the morrow's fights 

Then doth the sou? fall har-h on Sacred Lore 

And ponder on the Future — her delights! 

The disappointments of the garisli day 

Are drowned at Even in a flood of light 

The pangs and stabs when mind and mind give play 

With thoughts on mundane things, take hurried flight. 

This sacred hour sets Heaven's Gates ajar 

And of their radiance sheds the sheen afar. 



*These sonnets were written shortly before sunset and before 
twilight, Monday, May 4th, 1914.— J. A. C "The Merry Mills," Cobham, 
Albemarle county, Virginia. 



PIECESOFEIGHT 31 



Sonnet Thirty-one 

CASTLES IN SPAIN. 

"Their dwelling is the light of setting suns." — Wordsworth. 

Ye fairy Palaces ! Ye Domes and Towers ! 

Ye glitt'rinof Minarets of crimson stain 

When round the setting sim cloud on cloud towers 

Fill me with ecstacy full fraught with pain. 

The opal-tinted cloud-built cupolas 

The flying-buttresses of fairy green — 

Full bosomed, monster cornucopias — 

Whose gold and purple glorify their sheen ! 

The airy, fairy, pearly battlements 

That arm the whole and frown npon the world 

Whose bejewelled apertures and battle-vents 

Jut like the spikes of God's own crown impearled ! 

A feast for eye, for heart, for soul, for mind 

In each bewitching sunset, man may find. 



32 PIECES OF EIGHT 



Sonnet Thirty-two 

TWILIGHT. 

"Thanatopsis." — William Cullen Bryant. 

The magic witchery of Twilight hour 

When on a purple wood the Night sinks down 

When o'er the dying Day doth Darkness lour 

When on the haunts of Day doth Night frown 

Swift quicken in the Soul the mystery 

Of Life, her darksome riddles and her woe 

Which is from day to day a history 

Of ceaseless combat with an unseen foe! 

As o'er the forest dark doth hover Night 

Poised on her w^ide-spread wings of sable hue 

So o'er Lifes hopes doth Death poise as a blight 

Whose coming nearly all will sorely rue. 

So live that when thy Night doth settle down 

The Angel comes with smile and not with frown. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 33 



The Academy^ London, August 8, 1908. 
SCORPIO 

Sco7-pio. By J. A. Chaloner. (Palmetto Press.) 
Keats has told us that "they shall be accounted poet-kings who 
simply say the most heart-easing things?" It may well be, therefore, 
that the author of the present volume of sonnets has no desire to be 
ranked among the poet-kings. For he certainly does not come to us 
with heartsease in his hand. On the contrary he prides himself on 
the fact that he is a hard and terrible hitter. Indeed, he assures us 
that he has come to the conclusion that you can put a wicked man 
"to sleep" with a sonnet in pretty much the same way that a prize- 
fighter puts his opponent to sleep with a finished blow. And not 
only does Mr. Chaloner believe in what we may term the sonnetorial 
fist, but he believes also in whips and scorpions, for the cover of his 
hook is decorated with an angry-looking seven-thronged scourge, and 
he dubs the whole effort "Scorpio." So that when we look to the 
fair page itself we know what to expect. 

Nor are we disappointed. Mr. Chaloner goes to the opera. Being 
a good poet, he immediately writes a sonnet about it, the which, how- 
ever, he calls "The Devil's Horseshoe." We reproduce it for the bene- 
fit of all whom it may concern: 

'A fecund sight for a philosopher — 

Rich as Golconda's mine in lessons rare — 

That gem-bedizen'd "horse-shoe" at th" Opera, 

Replete with costly hags and matrons fair! 

His votaresses doth Mammon there array. 

His Amazonian Phalanx dread to face! 

To Mammon there do thej^ their homage pay! 

Spang'ld with jewels, satins, silks and lace, 

Crones whose old bosoms in their corsets creak; 

Beldams whose slightest glance would fright a horse; 

Ghouls — when they speak one hears the grave-mole squeak ■ 

Their escorts parvenus of feature course, 

A rich array of Luxury and Vice! 

But, spite of them, the music's very nice.' 

"Here you have whips, scorpions, and a knockout blow with a 
vengeance. The sonnet as a whole is not one which we can approve 
from a technical or sentimental point of view, but it has points. 
Henley might have plumed himself on that line about the creaking 
corsets, and the last line, a tour de force, in its way reminds us of 
the withering ironies of Byron. It is only fair to Mr. Chaloner to add 
that not all his sonnets are concerned with back-flaying, bosom-sting- 
ing, or general thumping. Some of them show the tenderer emotions 
proper to a poet. We like him best, however, in his character as 
metrical bruiser. He is always on the side of the angels even if he 
is frequently over vigorous; and his book is well worth possessing. 
We gather that he has undergone personal troubles of no light or 
of ordinary nature, and it is pleasant to note that, despite these 
troubles, he still retains a sane and reasonable outlook upon life, for 
when he likes he can be quite pleasantly humorous instead of acridly 
bitter. 



APPENDIX. 



HENRY BRINSLEY 

in 

"VANITY FAIR." 

New Yoek, January, 1914. 
I have been deeply moved recently by some verses of Mr. Jolin 
Armstrong Chaloner's, who has just published a slender volume of 
sonnets called "Scorpio. '"t The following lovely little lyric will tell 
its message without prosaic comment on my part: 

DEATH. 

When our appointed sands shall I'un their course, 

When in life's brief hour-glass none doth remain, 

T\'Tien death's mysterious river we must cross, 

The following thoughts may ease the Soid her pain: 

Death the Angel is of all activity 

The "open sesame*' to action rare — 

The quick'ning of a new nativity 

In a world Avhich is as dreadful as it's fair. 

The bones do rest, the dust doth rest. They rest. 

But the Spirit — that Avliioh sprang from God's bright 

Throne — 
The Spirit Avhich His breath gives life and zest. 
The Spirit thro' eternity goes on ! 
Tomb the portal is to Hell or Paradise — 
Purgatory is Hell and versa viae. 



tScorpio T. First published, 1913. 



PIECES OF EIGHT 35 



Boston Daily Advertiser, May 6, 1913. 

OH! "SCORPIO!" 

Scorpio, by John Armstrong Chaloner. 

Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. 

Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner has fully explained his purpose in 
"Scorpio." He only aims "at the strength of Juvenal, the keenness 
of Voltaire, the fiercensss of Swift and the form of Byron." If that is 
.so, why should he blush to be: 

"THE CHALLENGER."t 

Swinburne, Kipling, the Laureate join'd I'll fight 

With sharpen'd spears I'll meet them in field, 

At three to one for I stand for the right 

And under fair Fortune thus can great odds yield. 

As maiden knight my shield is purest white, 

But the bold Boers I'll champion with my pen, 

For, using a figure for poetic fight, 

I'll blazon it with the blood of Englishmen. 

My gifted foes I do not underrate. 

Their spears are strong their swords are biting keen — 

"A dare-devil task" the world will estimate 

"Who is this upstart whom no man hath seen?" 

Lance couch'd and charging T hurl my hot hurrah 

"Hell yawns for villains! Fiat Justitia." 



tWritten at outbreak of Boer war. 

Mr. Chaloner's prowess is not merely mental, witness his admira- 
tion for John L. Sullivan in 

THE APOTHEOSIS, 

Or 

The Dead-Game Sport's Lament. 

O! for a day of Lawrence Sullivan! 

Just one day of just one hour — nothing more. 

"Jeff," "Fitz," Ruhlin, Sharkey at four rounds per man, 

In succession sev'rally would bite the floor! 

Each into sweet oblivion then would float, 

Fropell'd by John's strong arm which ne'er did tire. 

Each in John L. would then his master note — 

John L. the paragon of "P. R's" empire! 

For twelve years he fought as man ne'er fought before; 

As John L. fought, ne'er will man fight again: 

For with him the love of battle counted more 

Than what rules now-a-days— the love of gain. 

John L.! Th' Imperial Roman, now I sing! 

Great John L. Sullivan, the Prize-Ring King! 

Mr. William Stone Booth and other pundits contend that Bacon 
was "Shakespeare." Mr. Chaloner merely calls his own verses "son- 
nets" (Shakespearian form, practically, exclusively). 

First published in 1907, "Scorpio" is as good now as it ever was. 



36 PIECES OF EIGHT 

Boston, Mass., Advertiser, December 20, 1913. 

SCORPIO STILL STINGS. 

We are sweetly toasted by .lohu Armstroug Chaloner in "Scorpio 
No. 2."ttt (Palmetto Press): 

THE TOURNEY. 

I love an enemy that strikes out bold! 

To th' Boston Advertiser doff I my bat 

E'en tho' he lives where one eats beans grown cold 

Or beans e'en hot as H — 1 — "all's one for that." 

I love the shock and clamour of the joust ! 

I love the roar ! I love the battle's din ! 

As they charge at me from my selle to oustt 

As I hold firm my pen to keep selle in! 

'Midst press o' th' knights o' th' pen I love to ride 

Where sword meets sword, or spear, or gleaming crest! 

Where th' good red blood flows in a silent tide 

Where each grim swordsman doth his d — dest best ! 

I' th' thick o' th' press o' th' knights I love to be 

When I feel my snow-white charger under me. it 

r>y this time Mr. Chaloner must be riding in gore to his stirrups. 
With his broadsword, or stilletto, or lance, or club, or snickersnee, or 
shotgun, he is daily as diligent as a book-keeper at his desk. Now 
that he is paying his militant respects to States and cities as well as 
persons, there's no end to material. We are gladdened with a promise 
of "Scorpio No. 3." 



t Saddle. 

ttA snow-white piece of paper. 

fttPublished, 1913. 



New York American, December 14, 1913. 

JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER'S SONNETS. 

SCORPIO II. 

Ml". John Armstrong Chaloner has published a book of sociological 
and satirical sonnets from which the one printed below is selected. 

THE SLIT-SKIRT. 

This fashion is a nasty, sluttish trick, 
'Tis nothing less— 'tis simply scandalous ! 
'Twould make a pirate blush to th' very quick. 
Or eke a Turk — Turk pachydermatous! 
'Twould make the ghost of Nero yelp with fright! 
And hie him to the shades of blackest Hell 
And once got back, shout out — "I've seen a sight 
That in this company I'm 'shamed to tell !" 
The vilest days of dark Imperial Rome, 
The most debauched epochs of the East 
Kept naked women closely hid at home — 
In the Slave-Quarter, or, to grace a feast. 
'Twas left unto the present century 
To bare female beauty to the passer-by ! 



PIECES OF EIGHT 37 



The Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Va., October 29, 1914. 

GHASTLY DETAIDS TELL OF BUTCHERY ON FIGHTING LINE. 



Rivers Run Red With Blood Through Heaped-Up Piles of Dead. 



Soldiers Like Demons In An Inferno of Death. 



No Quarter Is Given and None Is Asked in This "Battle of Bayonets." 



Gun Fire Is Withering. 



But Armies Press On, and Country Is Converted Into Veritable 

Shambles. 



London, October 28. — The lurid glare of burning bushes, with 
shadowy figures limned faintly against a background of smoke, work- 
ing like demons in an inferno of death of their own creation; the 
spiteful rattle of machine guns, the roar of bursting shells; the impact 
of driven bayonet against human flesh and bone; the cries of the 
wounded; shouts of triumph; rivers running red with blood through 
heaped-up piles of dead — this is the battle of Flanders as London 
pictures it to-night from the brief but ghastly details telegraphed 
from the fighting front. 

"A massacre, not a fight" — "A butchery" — "A shambles." Such are 
the phrases used over and over by correspondents endeavoring to give 
an inkling of the events of this bloodiest battle of the war. No quarter 
is asked, and none is given. It is the "Battle of the Bayonets!" 

Belgian regiments have been decimated to a third of their former 
fighting strength; British troops stand grim and dogged in the face of 
fearful loss; gallant Frenchmen shout with the lust of combat, and, 
opposed to them in the sublime grandeur of death, the solid ranks 
of Germans march unswervingly against a withering fire, and literally 
bestrew the landscape with their corpses. 

Water Is Streaked and Stained With Blood. 

There is no pure water for the wounded. The entire available 
supply is streaked and stained with blood — and there is no one to 
€ool parched lips and burning brows even with this. There is no 
chance to bury dead or care for wounded; the ground they He on is 
harrowed and furrowed over and over by the spraying bullets of 
mitrailleuses and the tearing fragments of bursting shrapnel. 

And out of the chaos there looms one fact from which England- 
at-home may extract some comfort. The Germans seem to be stopped. 

The 11 o'clock oflacial statement from Paris received here an- 
nounces that two furious night attacks by Germans on the allied line 
in the region of Dixmude were repulsed, and that all along the front 
from Nieuport to Dixmude, the Germans seemed to have lessened 
their efforts, while the allies, continuing their offensive to the north 
of Ypres, also have been successful further to the south, making slight 
progress on the line between Labassee and Lens. 

Indications from this statement and also from the statement 
Issued by the French War Office this afternoon are that the Kaiser's 



38 PIECES OFBIGHT 



generals have almost abandoned hope of advancing to Dunkirk and 
Calais. 

The correspondent of the Evening News wires that the Germans 
are falling back, but there is nothing in the other reports from the 
front to confirm this. Other reports are that the enemy is short of 
ammunition. And yet they have crossed the river Yser seven times, 
and seven times have been driven back. The losses were terrible, 
and at some points bridges across the river were actually formed hy 
the bodies of dead German soldiers, piled up in the sluggish current. 



"The Merry Mills,'' Cobham, Virginia. 
August 6, 1914. 
To the Editor of the New York "Herald" 
Sir: 

If space permits, pardon a law-writer's passing a few 
remarks upon the present European situation, I might pre- 
face said remarks hj saying that law is ruled by logic and 
knows no Eutopia. Therefore, to a law-writer, this world- 
encircling %oar is nothing short of a profawnd blessing — an 
act of God in fact — as the insurance policies put it. For the 
following incontrovertible reason. Nothing short of the pres- 
ence in Europe of that certain angel, with that certain "flam- 
ing sword which turned every way" — could have induced the 
European Powers to reduce the armaments by sea and land 
which w^ere turning the working man into a helot, and hurry- 
ing as rich a nation as France to the bogs and fens of bank- 
ruptcy. Everybody who knew anything knew the above cold, 
hard, undodgeable non-lie-outable fact. And yet we see 
tender hearted editors raising their hands to Heaven while 
the tears course down their brazen cheeks calling upon God 
to stop what — according to the best available evidence. He 
Himself has been at pains to set in motion ! Which would 
a man rather be — worked to death, or shot to death? I^ 
as a man who has experienced both processes — not to raise 
the veil higher over my legal afflictions with which the na- 
tional press rings — I. who am civiliter inoy^uus in New York 
per a decree of the N. Y, Supreme Court, lo! these many 
years — do not hesitate to say: ''''Give me death hy hidlet^ 
In closing, permit me to hazard a prognostication as to the 



PIECES OF EIGHT 39 

duration of the war, its progress, and its outcome — stoutly 
repudiating all claim to prophecy in the same breath, 

(1) The war will last more like three j^ears than three 
months. Some "smart Alecks" once said that the war between 
the States would pass into history in three months — and how 
much stronger in ever%j sense is Germany than the gallant 
but — at that time — sparsely settled and revenue-less South ? 

(2) France will reverse 1870. She will rise like a Phoenix 
from the ashes of that act of adventurous folly upon the part 
of a political upstart, and revert to the days of Jena, 
Wagram and Austerlitz when German and Austrian were 
her opponents in vain. She will surprise the world as much 
as Japan did with Russia! 

(3) The German fleet will be either captured or sunk by 
Great Britain and German commerce driven from the sea. 
Of course, Germany may repeat her naval policy of 1870, and 
bottle herself up out of harm's way — but I feel confident — 
as a man with German blood in my veins — of which I am 
proud — that neither the Kaiser nor the great German people 
would stand for that. Teuton and Briton will meet in a bat- 
tle to the death on the Briton's element — the wave — and the 
Teuton will bravely go down with his ship. 

(4) If Italy comes into the struggle her socialistic sec- 
tion will so paralyze the Government that Italy cannot be 
counted upon for more than half her military strength. She 
will do her best to keep out for two reasons. First : The King 
is very much married ; and his charming consort comes pretty 
near wearing the crown — and, as everyone laiows — she is a 
Princess of warlike little Montenegro, and her heroic old 
father is at the front against the Triple Alliance. 

Second: Italy has always cultivated a warm friendship 
for England — partly owing to her enormous coast-line, which, 
of course, necessitates a fleet to defend. Therefore, it pays 
her to be on terms with the Queen of the Waves, Britannia. 
Q. E. D. 

(5) At the end of the war — when Germany shall have 
been crushed between the upper and nether millstone — be- 
tween the Colossus of the North and France — and her un- 
daunted but tottering ally, Austria — a house divided into 
three warring sections against itself — ^Teuton — Magyar — and 



40 PIECES OFEIGHT 



^lav — shall have been actually dismembered, then the per- 
manent peace of the world will dictate the following choice — 
the refusal of which will mean political annihilation. 

(A) The restoration of Alsace and Lorraine to France 
from whom they were stolen by Bismarck at the instigation 
of Mohke, on the ground that ''Metz is worth two hundred 
thousand men!" The excuse publicly given was that Louis 
XIV had seized the bone of contention. But the law recog- 
nizes the right of squatters to become the legal proprietors 
of the land upon which they have squatted for twenty years 
undisturbed — and title undisputed. France squatted on 
Alsace-Lorraine for something like two centuries, undisputed 
and undisturbed. (}. E. D. 

(B) The erection of Hungary into a separate Kingdom 
under a King chosen by herself. 

(C) The erection of the Slav Provinces seized from time 
to time by Austria, into an independent kingdom or Princi- 
pality, if they do not elect to become part of Servia. 

(D) Lastly, the more efficient policing of the keeping 
dow^n of the military forces of Germany than Napoleon 
Bonaparte succeeded in accomplishing — for that mighty 
genius was flatly fooled, hood-winked and bamboozled by 
shrewd and patriotic Germany. He forbade her to have 
more troops with the colors at one time) than a certain fixed 
number — fixed by him. Germany gravely acquiesced, and 
quietly kept the allotted number with the colors just long 
enough to receive training, and tlien what? Why^ turned 
them loose and trained as many Tnore raw recindts with the 
colors in freeisely the same way^ and then turned them, loose 
and began again ! 

The result was — in a very^ very few years a trained na- 
tional force several times larger than she had ever — at any 
one time — had with the colors — hence Waterloo, and hence 
that historic '"'•hlacTc-eyey 

France, Russia and Great Brittain will become the police 
force of Europe; and Germany and Austria's military estab- 
lishments will elfectually be kept at a peace footing — to j)ut it 
ovildly! 

In conclusion. No one can deprecate pain or suffering, 
bloodshed or death more than the undersigned. But until the 



PIECESOFEIGHT 41 



Millenium dawns, human nature will as surely remain in- 
eradicably human nature ''as eggs'' — ineradicably — "is eggs.'' 
It looks, from the spectacular size of the amazing, Armaged- 
don-like drama upon which the European curtain is soon to 
rise — as though the sword, which the Founder of Christianity 
said He had come to bring — had arrived. And once that 
sword is sheathed there'll be no more burdensome armaments 
to meet — except a force sufficient to insure peace^ — the force 
being the said Policq of Europe. 

JOHN AKMSTROXG CHALONER. 



tA portion of above letter was published by the Herald, a few 
days subsequent to its date. — J. A. C. 



New York Herald. 

ASKS FRAYERS FOR ALLIES' SUCCESS RATHER THAN FOR 

SPEEDY PEACE. 

DONALD HARPER, AMERICAN LAWYER OF PARIS, SAYS PRES- 
ENT GENERATION IN BRITAIN AND FRANCE ARE 
SACRIFICING LIVES FOR FUTURE HUMANITY. 

New York, Thursday, September 10, 1914. — Donald Harper, an 
American lawyer resident in Paris, who arrived here a day or so ago 
and is now at the Holland House, said yesterday that it was useless 
in these days to pray for peace until German militarism is shattered 
forever. 

He said this apropos of the proclamation of President Wilson 
directing that October 4 be set aside as a day for offering petitions 
to the Most High that peace be restored in Europe. 

"I do not profess," said Mr. Harper, "to have any special standing 
in the courts of heaven. I have no advice to give to those who may 
pray in the solemn hours of October 4 according to the appeal of our 
lofty-minded President. I speak reverently, yet I would like to sug- 
gest that our prayers be a special plea to the Almighty for victory 
for the allies. 

"From many years' residence abroad in close touch with people 
of France and of Great Britain and from recent observation among 
them, I affirm it as my opinion that they will never agree to peace 
until the curse of German militarism is a thing of the past. The 
workins:men of our sister republic and of that other great democracy, 
Great Britain, have a right to enjoy the fruits of their labor amid 
veaee and- happiness toithont bein<j burdened to death by ruinoux 
money taxes in time of peaee and red blood taxes in time of war. 
This present generation will make the sacrifice of their lives for the 
benefit of humanity and future generations. This, as I see it, is their 
determined and unalterable resolution. There can be no peace until 
this is accomplished." 



42 PIECES OF EIGHT 



The Merry Mills, Cobham, Va., September 3, 1914. 
Editor Times-Dispatch : 

Sir, — Permit me to suggest that the "s" should be eliminated in 
the terminal words of the two last lines in Kipling's tine poem "For 
All We Have And Are," published in your issue of yesterday — a fitting 
companion piece to his immortal "Recessional" — since Kiplng would 
never be guilty of so slovenly a rhyme as "all" with "falls"; and 
"give" with lives." The mistake was evidently made in transmission. 
The splendid climax to the four verses will then read: 

"There's but one task for all. 
For each one life to give; 
Who stands if freedom fall? 
Who dies if England live? 

JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONBR. 



APPENDIX NOTES. 



Sonnet Two, page 2. 

THE KAISER, f 

WINDY BILL * 

The Trouble-House of Europe, 

or 

The Medicine Man. 

(St. Loe Strachey, Editor London SIpectafor, log^iitur.) 

"Watch out for that bloody Dutchman, Windy Bill. 

That smug, moustacho'd lanz-knecht, William Two, 

Who as a man stands as a sorrj' pill 

"Rubbing in" his small lese-majestie to do. 

Who as a bullying braggart struts abroad, 

Follow'd by eavesdroppers who keyhole-squint: 

These spittle-licking reptiles store and hoard 

Gossip and lies that lese-majestie do hint. 

As cold a tyrant as the ^vorld e'er sate — 

This shrewd intriguing schemer day and night — 

To whom alone necessity is law 

And whose fear of licking checks Jiis love] for fight. 

Oh, William Two, I long for the happy day 

When Columbia meets thee in battle array." 

"WINDY BILL," ETC. * 

The Medicine-Man of Europe, Windy Bill, tries to dazzle his 
subjects by pretending to be master of all arts, and Jack-of-all-trades; 
as though his subjects were as foolable as savage African negroes, 
and he, their tricky, vicious Medicine-Man. For instance, Windy Bill's 
absurd attempt at leading an orchestra — an art that is a life-work in 
itself. We have, among half a dozen other nationalities, German blood 
in our veins, and yield to none in admiration for the great German 
people. But we have a rather keen eye for a faker, whether he wears 
a top hat or a crown on his head; and Windy Bill, who for about 
twenty years has' been filling the air with platitudes about peace, 
dropped his faker's mask, behind which he had been masquerading 
as an apostle of peace and righteousness ever since he kicked out Bis- 
marck, and came out in his true colors, as bluffer and bulldozer, at 
the Moroccan Conference — the most colossal diplomatic blunder since 
Bismarck — disregarding his own judgment, if we remember rightly — 
yielded to Moltke and turned Europe into an armed camp for the sake 
of iStrasburg and Metz, by disregarding what law recognizes, namely, 
that the best claim can become outlawed by the lapse of time; and, 
not satisfied with a murderously mercenary money mulct, seized Al- 
sace and Lorraine— Vi'liich conference was called, as all in the world 
know, for the sole purpose of driving a wedge into the Anglo-French 
entente, whereas the result of which conference was to cement said 
entente and drive a ivedge in the Triple Alliance, between Windy Bill 
and Italy, and also to make Russia — as soon as she shall have set her 



44 PIECES OP EIGHT 



Tiouse in order — draw near to her former, but now under changed con- 
ditions in the East owing to the marvelous rise of Japan and the 
Anglo- Japanese alliance's influence on Russia towards China and India 
draw near to her former -foe, Great Britain, and form tvitJi France 
a counter Triple AUiance, as a conservative counterpoise to the un- 
scrupulous adventurer and fisher in troubled waters, our friend, the 
Medicine-Man. No better citizen comes to our shores than he of the 
Fatherland. No more intelligent, honest, industrious, and last — and, 
to our minds, greatest, almost — broad-minded immigrant arrives than 
Hans and his flaxen-haired Gretchen. Therefore let no one suppose 
that we fail to grasp the great qualities of Germans. Lastly, it 
is because we see an inevitable clash with Windy in South America 
when — but not a moment before — Windy thinks his fleet is big enough — 
to insure his importing Pommeranian Grenadiers into Argentina to 
move from there as a base, over the length and breadth of South 
America, to insure said Pommeranian importation in despite of the 
statesmanlike and heroic Monroe Doctrine, for which we would die, 
not forgetting that it is good Democratic Doctrine, having been 
begotten by a Democrat, which grand doctrine, protects the weak 
against the strong, the infant — so to speak — Republics of Central or 
South America from that gray-haired veteran, Europe, and pro- 
tects Republics from Monarchies and Empires. To give the Devil 
his due. Windy Bill has the interests of the Fatherland at heart; 
but his Jieart is cold, cruel, and utterly selfish and tricky: hence he is 
a proposition it behooves Uncle Sam to watch and keep his hand on 
his watch when he happens to be in his company. Truth forces us to 
.admit that he is one of the most powerful and eloquent orators 
alive to-day. As for tact. Windy is as lacking in that desirable com- 
modity about as lacking as a bull moose. Windy's choice of a rep- 
resentative, at Fez, in the delicate and dangerous pre-conference stage 
of the game, of a diplomatic temperament as tattered as his name — 
that dangerous name — Ttttenbach-Askold — proved how inferior as a 
diplomatist Windy is to his uncle, the great King and splendid gentle- 
man, Edward VII. 



*From Scorpio, published in 1907. 



Sonnet Three, page 3. 

A GERMAN VERSION OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN, t 

Times-DisjMtr.h. Sunday, September 6, 1914. 

London, September 5 (4 A. M. ). — The Petrograd (St. Petersburg) 
correspondent of the Post, describing the Russian advance on Lem- 
berg, says: 

"All towns in Russia with a German form of name were changed 
to the Slav form. This is not due to the fact that Russia is at war 
with Germany, but is Russia's appeal to the inexorable tribunal of 
history against the savage ferocity the unsoldierly nation consistently 
displayed torvard helpless refugees.'^ 

"A considerable sensation was caused here by the discovery 
aboard the German cruiser Magdeburg, which was recently blown up, 
of a number of cat-o' -nine-tails, which were found in every officers'' 
cabin all bearing signs of long and hard usage." 



PIECES OF EIGHT 45 



Sonnet Four, page 4. 

DISARMAMENT. f 

Tacitus' "History," page 146 et seq. 

12. The Batavians (the Belgae — the Belgians) — dwell on the other 
side of the Rhine. 

13. Juliiis Paullus and Claudius Civilis, scions of the royal family, 
ranked very high above the rest of their nation. Paullus v.as executed 
by Fonteius Capito on a false charge of rebellion. Civilis was put 
in chains and sent to Nero, and, though acquitted by Galba, again 
stood in peril of his life in the time of Vitellius, when the army 
clamoured for his execution, here were causes of deep offence; hence 
arose hopes built on our disasters. Civilis, however was naturally 
politic to a degree rarely found among barbarians. He was wont to 
represent himself as Sertorius or Hannibal, on the strength of a 
similar disfigurement of his countenance. To avoid the opposition 
which he would encounter as a public enemy, were he openly to revolt 
from Rome, he effected a friendship for Vespasian and a zealous at- 
tachment to his party. 

14. Civilis, who was resolved on rebellion, and intended, while 
concealing his ulterior designs, to reveal his other plans as occasion 
presented itself, set about the work of revolution in this way. By 
command of Vitellius all the Batavian youth was then being sum- 
moned to the conscription, a thing naturally vexatious, and which 
the officials m.ade yet more burdensom^e by their rapacity and profli- 
gacy, while they selected aged and infirm persons, whom they might 
discharge for a consideration, and mere striplings, but of distinguished 
beauty (and many attain even in boyhood to a noble stature), whom 
they dragged off for infamous purposes. This caused indignation, and 
the ringleaders of the concerted rebellion prevailed upon the people 
to refuse the conscription. Civilis collected at one of the sacred 
groves, ostensibly for a banquet, tho chiefs of the nation and the 
boldest spirits of the lower class. When he saw them w'armed with 
the festivities of the night, he began by speaking of the renown and 
glory of their race, and then counted the wrongs and the oppressions 
which they endured, and all the other evils of slavery, "There is," he 
said, "no alliance, as once there was; we are treated as slaves. When 
does ever a legate come among us though he come only with burden- 
some retinue and in all the haughtiness of power? We are handed 
over to prefects and centurions, and when they are glutted with our 
spoils and our blood, then they are changed, and new receptacles for 
plunder, new terms for spoliation, are discovered. Now the conscrip- 
tion is at hand, tearing, we may say, for ever, children from parents, 
and brothers from brothers. Never has the power of Rome been 
more depressed. In the winter quarters of the legions there is noth- 
ing but propertj^ to plunder and a few old men. Only dare to look 
up, and cease to tremble at the empty name of legions, for we have 
a vast force of horse and foot. 

"The Batavians," he said, "though free of tribute, have yet taken 
up arms against our common masters. In the first conflict the sol- 
diers of Rome have been routed and vanquished. Wliat will be the 
result if Gaul throws off the yoke? What strength is there yet left 
in Italy? It is by the blood of the provinces that the provinces are 
conquered. Think not of how it fared with the armies of Vindex. It 
was by the Batavian cavalry that the Aedui and the Arveni were tram- 
pled down, and among the auxiliaries of Verginius there were found 
Belgian troops. To those w^ho will estimate the matter aright it is 



46 PIECES OPEIGHT 



evident that Gaul fell by her own strength. But now all are on the 
same side, and we have whatever remnant of military vigour still 
flourished in the camps of Rome. With us, too, are the veteran 
cohorts to v/hich the legions of Otho lately succumbed. 

Let Syria, Asia Minor, and the East, habituated as it is to despot- 
ism, submit to slavery; there are many yet alive in Gaul who were 
born before the days of tribute. It was only lately, indeed, that 
Quintilius Varus was slain, and slavery driven out of Germany. And 
the Emperor vvho \vas challenged by that war was not a Vitellius, 
but a Caesar Augustus. Freedom is a gift bestowed by nature even 
on duvib animals. Courage is the peculiar excellence of man, and 
the Gods help the braver side. Let us, then, who are free to act and 
vigorous, fall on a distracted and exhausted enemy. While some are 
supporting Vespasian, and others Vitellius, opportunities are opening 
up for acting against both." 

18. Civilis, surrounding himself with the standards of the cap- 
tured cohorts, to keep their recent honors before the eyes of his own 
men, and to terrify the enemy by their remembrance of defeat, now 
directed Ms oivn mother and sisters, and the wives and children of 
all his men, to stand in the rear, where tliep might encourage to vic- 
tory, or shame defeat. The icar-song of the men, and the shrill cries 
of the toomen, rose from the whole line, and an ansivering but far 
less vigorous cheer, came from the legions and auxiliaries. [And the^ 
defeat and retreat of the Romans followed.] 

[Civilis shows his power as an orator in the following brief speech 
to the envoy of a neighboring people whom he roused to war against 
Rome.] 

32. "It is," he said, "a noble reward that I have received for my 
toil; my brother murdered, myself imprisoned, and the savage clamour 
of this army, a clamour which demanded my execution, and for ivhieh, 
by the law of nations. I demand vengeance. You, Treveri, and other 
enslaved creatures, what rev*'ard do you expect for blood which you 
have shed so often? What but a hateful service, perpetual tribute, the 
rod, the axe, and the passions of a ruling race? See how I, the prefect 
of a single cohort, with Batavians and the Canninefates, a mere 
fraction of Gaul, have destroyed their vast but useless camps, or are 
pressing them with the close blockade of famine and the sword. In 
a word, either freedom will follow on our efforts, or, if we are van- 
quished, we shall but be what w^e were before." 



Sonnet Five, page 5. 

TO THE GERMAN ARMY OFEICERS. f 

Special to The Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch. 

RETURNING AMERICANS REPORT EXCITING EXPERIENCES 

WHILE TRYING TO ESCAPE PROM WAR ZONE— WOMEN 

SUFFER TERRIBLE INDIGNITIES. 

New York, September 6, 1914. 
Vance Thompson, the well-knov/n American critic and author, 
and his father, the Rev. C. L. Thompson, were on the Continent 
during the first part of the war. Mr. Thompson was an eye-witness to 
the atrocious conduct of a young German officer at Stuttgart, who 
ordered two English women stripped and searched. 

"I was boarding a train at Stuttgart for Basel, Switzerland," said 
Mr. Thompson, "when I heard a young German officer demand the 
passports of two young English women. Although he was in uniform 



PIECES OF EIGHT 47 



the women mistook him for a porter and answered him sneeringly. 
He seemed to lose his temper and exclaiming: "I'll show you that 
German officers are not to be trifled with,' ordered thevi stripped on 
the platform- and submitted to other indignities. 

Suffer Indignities at Every Stop of Train. 

"Then they were pushed on board the train, and word was tele- 
graphed to the guards at all the stations en route that those two 
women had insulted a German officer and ivcre to be stripped and 
mistreated at every stop the train made. 

"The order was carried out and soirietimes the women were 
stripped on the platform, and at other times in the baggage-room, 
soldiers being present, and enjoying the distress and discomfiture of 
their victims immensely. The train stopped seven times, and by the 
time we reached Basel the women were prostrated and almost out of 
their minds. 

"They v/ere members of one of the best families in England and 
I do not care to make public their names. From Basel I took them 
to St. Ludwig and thence to Lucerne." 

Mr. Thompson said that the town of Muelhausen was taken by 
17,000 French troops, and was retaken by the Germans with 52,000 
men. 

"The French received a warm welcome, but when the Germans 
returned they punished the citizens for showing kindness to the 
French. I was in Muelhausen personally, and I was told, although I 
did not see it myself, that troops of Uhlans, fifty strong, were sent 
out to burn and pillage the surrounding villages. They were sent 
withotit officers. 

"It was said that they shot two priests who refused to permit 
them to enter a church where women and children had sought refuge. 
They then dragged the women, and children out, and cut their heads 
open with their swords and mistreated them in other ways. They 
turned every farm house tvithin a radius of t<n miles of Muelhausen."' 



Sonnet Six, page 6. 

"UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!" t 

Illustrated London News. August 15, 1914. 

"The King [of the Belgians] also made a strong address to his 
people before riding away to Louvain to place himself at the head 
of his troops. He said: "I have faith in our destinies. A country 
which defends itself gains the respect of all. That country does not 
perish. God will be with us in this just cause. Long live independent 
Belgium!" .Later, in addressing his soldiers, he said: "Valiant soldiers 
in a sacred cause, I have confidence in your tenacious courage. * * * 
Caesar said of your ancestors: 'Of all the people of Gaul, the Belgians 
are the most brave.'' Glory to you, army of the Belgian people." 

The War Illustrated, London, October 17, 1914. 

Another example of Germany's campaign to terrorise the innocent. 
A Belgian woman, robbed of husband and home by German "fright- 
fulness^'' is forced to beg in the streets. Tragedies similar to this 
are to be found by the score in every Belgian town. 

The War Illustrated, London, October 17, 1914. 

In his dispatch of September 18th, Sir John French reported: 
"At Senlin, a poacher shot one German soldier and wounded another. 



48 PIECES OF E'GHT 



a 



The German commander then assembled the mayor of the town and 
five other leading citizens and forced them to kneel before the graves 
which has already been dug. Requisition was made for various sup- 
plies, and the six citizens were then taken to a neighboring field 
and shot. According to the corroborative evidence of several inde- 
pendent persons, some twenty-four people, including women and chil- 
dren, were also shot. The toion was then pillaged, and ivas fired in 
several places before it was evacuated. It is believed that the cathe- 
dral was not damaged, but many houses were destroyed." 

No doubt about it. There's only one good German, and that's a 
dead German— and he goes to Hell.— J. A. C, Richmond, Virginia, 
Hallowe'en, 1914. 

Illustrated London News, September 19, 1914. (p. 430) 

Among the countless indignant protests against German vandal- 
ism in Belgium that have been made in every civilized country, special 
sympathy is due to that of the Art Adviser to the Belgian govern- 
ment, Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove. 

In a recent letter on the subject, he said: "Germans' amour propre 
cannot forgive Belgium for the checking of the German armies and 
the upsetting of her calculations. German pride thirsts for ven- 
geance." 

"Alas"! he concludes, "what has been destroyed is lost forever. 
But it seems to me that, for the honor of humanity, a protest should 
be raised in every part of the world against such stupid, barbarous, 
and shameful excesses." 



Sonnet Seven, page 7. 

"GET OFF!" SAID GENERAL JOFFRE. f 
Daily Standard. London, October 4. 1914. 

KAISER KEPT OUT OF RANGE OF ENEMY'S FIRE ; 
GUARDED ELABORATELY AT FRONT. 

CONVERTS FRENCH CHATEAU INTO "FORT" WITH STRONG 

GARRISON— PROTECTED FROM SURPRISE ATTACK BY 

LAND OR SKY— HARRANGUE'S HIS SOLDIERS 

AND OMITS NO POMP. 

London, October 5. — ^Our correspondent at Amsterdam telegraphs 
that "a typical day with the kaiser is thus described by an eyewit- 
ness" : 

"Rid yourself, first of all, of the idea that the emperor is a, heroic 
figure. He is a man not exactly of small stature, but he is distinctly 
below the average height and rather fat, so that he is more like a 
tjTical German beer drinker and sausage eater than a knightly- 
cavalier. Moreover, his left arm is about ten inches shorter than the 
right arm and partially paralyzed. 

Deformity Unpleasant to See. 

"This deformity strikes the eye unpleasantly, though one cannot 
withhold a certain admiration for the energy which enabled the 
kaiser to become a good shot and a passable rider in spite of this tre- 
mendous handicap. 

"On this particular occasion the kaiser had been sleeping in a 



PIECESOF EIGHT 49 



French chateau, but not without elaborate precautions against a sur- 
prise attacl?^. 

"The extraordinary measures talten to guard the Ivaiser must 
be attributed not so much to personal cowardice as to his profound 
conviction that his safety is essential to the Fatherland. It must be 
remembered that his mental make-up is a quaint mixture of bluff, 
coarse brutality, lack of real courage, intelligence, capacity for quick 
absorption of superficial facts, religious fanaticism and megalomania 
(big head). 

Fortified Against Air Attack. 

"The French chateau was fortified against aerial attacks. Sacks 
were piled on the roof and a protective shield of metal network was 
erected. 

"Whenever the kaiser moves his quarters a small army of military 
engineers precedes him to carry out these defensive measures before 
his arrival. Of course, they are withdrawn from the fighting line, 
but the kaiser genuinely believes his person of more value to the 
cause of Germany than a complete army corps. 

"Around the chateau were men of his special bodyguard, a detach- 
ment was outside his bedroom door, another in the hall, another at 
the front door, and two more detachments were in the rooms immedi- 
ately above and beneath his own room. Three unbroken lines of sen- 
tries surrounded the house, a whole battalion of infantry, and several 
squadrons of cavalry were encamped in the park. 

"This was some 20 miles from the front, and the chateau was 
connected by field telegraph with the headquarters of the nearest 
army, so that any sudden retreat of the German legions should not 
place the supreme ivar lord in danger. 

"Soon after sunrise the kaiser emerged from the chatoau and 
greeted his soldiers with his customary 'Good morning, soldiers,' to 
which all of them in the immediate vicinity replied in unison: 

" 'Good morning, your majesty.' 

"A motor car was in readiness and the kaiser was whirled swiftly 
toward the front, while the troops which had guarded him stood 
rigidly at attention. Ten drummers of the bodyguard beat their 
drums by way of salute. The imperial standard was conveyed in the 
second motor car and the officers of the imperial suite followed in 
others. The cavalry of the body guard preceded the monarch to the 
place where he left the motor car to mount his horse. 

No Ceremony Omitted. 

"As he was helped into the saddle the troopers saluted with their 
swords and, another set of drummers beat drums. No ceremony may 
be omitted, even at the front. 

"The kaiser rode off with his mounted guard thickly clustered 
around him. A standard bearer riding immediately behind him bore 
the imperial flag. 

"Then followed a spectacular progress from point to point in the 
rear of the fighting line — at a sa'fe distance to the rear, I may add, 
because the supreme war lord must not be exposed to stray bullets 
or shrapnel. Large bodies of reserves had bivouacked in those parts 
and fresh troops v/ere marching up from the direction of the frontier. 



50 PIECESOF EIGHT 



Makes Speeches to Troops. 

"The kaiser halted and addressed a fervently patriotic oration to 
one regiment and another to the second regiment, as he rode from 
place to place. During the morning he delivered no less than nine 
speeches, all bombastic and excessively martial in tone. 

"Lunch was taken in the open air, at a table in front of a certain 
general's tent. Wine and food commandeered from the residence of 
a French country gentleman supplied the kaiser with a splendidly 
luxurious meal prepared by his own cook, and served by his flunkeys 
in gorgeous striped uniform. None of the pomp of the imperial court 
was abandoned at the front. 

"More visits to the troops and more speeches in the afternoon, 
and back by automobile to the chateau for dinner. At no moment 
during the day had the kaiser been within range of the enemy's fire.'* 

How different from the vvays of one Napoleon Bonaparte, this is. — 
J. A. C, Richmond, Virginia, Hallowe'en, 1914. 



Sonnet Eleven, page 11. 

THE EMPIRE, f 
The Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia, September 20, 1914. 
On the Battle Front, September 19, via Paris, September 19, 3:06 P.M. 
BOTH SIDES ABANDON MOVEMENTS IN THE OPEN. 

"There were a few isolated encounters to-day, but both sides 
appear to have abandoned the rash movements across the open which 
marked the early stages of the war. Obviously the deadly machine 
guns have taught a lesson. 

One of the incidents of yesterday, when fierce fighting was awful 
in its sacrifices, was widely recounted to-day. 

A British infantry regiment, upon receiving on order to advance 
and take a German position knelt for a moment in prayer. Then the 
men, knowing their charge was to be terrible in cost, sprang to their 
feet and with fixed bayonets clambered out of the shelter of the trench. 
In short and rapid rushes they advanced in wide open order, alter- 
nately lying down and then making another dash of fifteen yards. 
From the German line came the thick veil of the machine guns. The 
aitackinc) soldiers hurrahed and sang as they pressed forward. Many 
fell iDith cries of determination on their lips. Finally those who 
remained of the regiment reached and took the German position after 
a desperate hand-to-hand encounter." 

If this sonnet should reach the trenches it may he sung, and to 
the tune of that epoch-making — but — barring its splendidly booming 
chorus — utterly wordless song — of its day — of twenty-two years ago — 
"Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay"— 7-epeating the closing couplet of the sonnet. 
The following chorus would then go with it — written by the author 
at the height of the Spanish American War — and entitled. 



PIECESOFEIGHT 51 

WAR-CHORUS. 

THE FLAMING STAR. 

(Tune, "Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay," as sung by Miss Lottie Collins.) 

Hurrah for War! Three yells for war! 

We despise death to H — 1 with fear! 

We follow honour's flaming star — 

Follow her fast follow her far. 

Tho' dread wounds threaten many a scar 

Tho' hunger all our comfort mar 

For disease or death we've naught but jeer 

We despise death to H — I with fear! 

CHORUS. 
Ta ra ra boom de ay 
Ta ra ra boom de ay 
Ta ra ra boom de ay 
Ta ra ra boom de ay 
Ta ra ra boom de ay 
Ta ra ra boom de ay 
Ta ra ra boom de ay 
Ta ra ra boom! 



Sonnet Twelve, page 12. 

TO JEWS AND GENTILES, BOND AND FREE, f 

The Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia, September 20, 1914. 

Washington, September 19. — Dispatches from Great Britain indi- 
cate some resentment over the talk of peace emanating from the 
United States. One diplomatist compared the situation to that exist- 
ing just before the Spanish-American War. The efforts of certain 
European diplomats to stave off that conflict, he said, 7net with bitter 
denunciation by the American press and abrupt rejection by officials 
of the Anierican government.'" 

Assurance, cheek, and "gall" are Yankee assets, which bid fair 
to be worked overtime before this war is over; in unseemly and 
obtrusive attempted premature-peace overtures. For German-Ameri- 
cans it is only natural to attempt to save their friends and relations 
in Germany from the fearful reckoning now about starting under way; 
as the mobilization of France slowly completes itself; and that of 
gigantic, colossal, Russia has now fairly begun; and Great Britain 
has started the enrollment of an army of one million, four hundred 
thousand men; with one million, six hundred thousand more men to 
be enrolled — if need be — where the others came from. But for any 
one but a German-American or an Austro-American, or a Turkish- 
American to raise his voice, is about as gross a breach of international 
manners as could well be imagined. What ivould Americans have 
said at officious and- obdurate suggestions of peace at the outset of 
the Spanish- Am erican War upon the part of South Americans or 
Europeans? Dors anybody doubt that such butters-in would, have 
been more or less politely invited "to go to Hell?" And yet that 
is just what American peace promoters are doing. It would be inter- 
esting to remove just a corner of the veil shrouding the motives of 



52 PIECES OF EIGHT 



these great-hearted sons of Uncle Sam who are so shamelessly and 
scandalously pushing their long noses into other people's private 
affairs. In the first place: concerning newspapers supporting peace, 
the question would naturally arise: "How many German- American 
advertisers has- that paper? 

In the second place: concerning priests, clergymen, preachers 
and rabbis clamouring for premature peace, the question would natu- 
rally arise: "Hoiv many rich German- American parisho tiers are there 
in that congregationf' 

In the third place: concerning politicians yelping for premature 
peace, the question would naturally arise: "How many German-Ameri- 
can constituents has that fellowT' 

Finally, in the fourth and last place: concerning the man-in-the- 
street, the question would naturally arise: "How much is his great 
warm heart actuated in its altruistic and brotherly throbs, by the 
hundred million or more war-tax America must unioillingly "pungle- 
up'" to meet the deficit in the Custom House receipts, caused by the 
total cessation practically of continental manufactures? How much 
does the fact that he has to go down deeper into his pocket than ever 
before to pay for the necessities and luxuries of life influence Ms 
God-like soul? 

J. A. C, Richmond, Virginia, September 21, 1914. 



Sonnet Twenty-two, page 22. 

PAX ROMANA, III. j" 

The blowing up of three British warships by one or more German 
submarines in the North Sea recently; and the blowing up of a Rus- 
sian cruiser, and six hundred men the other day, by another, indicate 
that new and drastic means must be taken to offset this heretofore 
untried element in naval warfare. Two things present themselves: 

First. The convoying of every warship by from one to four or 
five submarines; always submerged. One to protect each side of a 
warship, in particular when at anchor and a fifth to go below the 
four and prevent a hostile submarine from diving under them and 
coming up with a rush between them and into the bottom of the 
warship. This, of course, would reduce the speed of warships per- 
ceptibly, to put it somewhat mildly, but it would also reduce the 
chance of successful torpedoing by the enemy by means of submarines 
practically to a minimum. 

Second and lastly. This is not nearly so certain as the above 
but it is far less expensive and does not in the least reduce the speed 
of the fastest cruiser even. It is nothing more nor less than making 
the hold and keel of a warship as formidable as her deck. Thus: 

Inlay her bottom at the shortest possible intervals consistent with 
strength to the structure, with the thickest and most transparent plate 
glass. The same to be done with the sides, bow and stern a few feet 
below the water line. Then cut ports for torpedo tubes at intervals 
in bottom, sides, bow and stern. Thus the warship loould be on an 
even footing with the submarine. And when the latter approached 
the former either from below, or on the sides or at the bow or stern, 
the warship — having also search-lights to throtv a light under the 
xoater at sides. bo%o, stern and bottom — would be in a position by day 
or night to protect herself not from one but a dozen submarines by 
means of her vast and bristling array of tubes. 

Touching upon the question of dirigibles it fills us with horror 
to read of the dauntless French and British Army aviators coolly de- 



PIECESOFEIGHT 53, 



daring that they will charge the gas-bags and "go to glory" with 
them. It strikes us as a marvellous thing this — a truly most mar- 
vellous thing— that in this boasted age of inventive genius, no man 
has prepared a species of rocket to slioot into the big gas bags from 
a safe distance and explode these emanations from Hell. Nothing is 
more inflammable than illuminating gas. Nothing is more frail or pene- 
trable than the sausage skins enveloping these big gas bags, while a 
mere spark is all that is required to set them off! And yet we hear 
of aviators calmly devoting themselves to destruction — to certain 
death — immolating themselves upon their country's altar — because the 
horde of inventors is baffled by the problem of shooting a spark into 
a gas bag from a comparatively safe distance! Where is the much 
belauded Sir Hiram Maxim these days? Is he asleep or dead? He 
who was so active in the piping times of peace — a few years ago — 
concerning patenting an infernal machine with wings, that should 
drop destruction on a martial host below — or come near doing it, at 
least. Not a solitary word has the world heard from Sir Hiram, now 
that war is on, and his adopted country is being afflicted by sub- 
marines by day, and concern about bomb-dropping dirigibles by night! 
"We would respectfully suggest that he turn his gigantic intellect in 
the above direction, and strive — by turning out a Roman candle with 
sufficient stiffness to penetrate a gas bag and fire it, or — better yet — a 
light shell that could be fired from a gun light enough to be carried 
on a monoplane, and which would burst into flame upon contact with 
the gas — and thus save the lives of the heroic aviators now in such 
deadly jeopardy. 

"The Merry Mills," October 14, 1914. 

The blowing up of another British warship by a German sub- 
marine, two or three days, or so, ngo, emphasises the need of unusual 
and extraordinary precautions in meeting this utterly new element in 
naval warfare. 

We respectfully suggest to the consideration of the First Lord of 
the Admiralty that rrenj officer and sailor on board a wnrahijy—u nless 
that shij) is convoyed by one or more submarines or has a torpe(l(htubed 
hold and bottom as aforesaid — should be- compelled to wear life pre- 
servers day and night, on duty or off duty. This includes the man 
at the Marconi telegraph as icell. so that he might utilize the few 
seconds — or minutes — standing between the blowing up of the ship and 
his leap for life, from the deck, in sending out a signal of distress. 
A stout cork life preserver will support a man in the water for twenty- 
four hoiirs or moi'e. Men can worlc in life preservers — can do the 
heavy work of rowing in a heavy sea — witness coastguards in a life 
boat. And the writer can witness that men can sleep in one — since he 
regularly does, on returning, after dark, in his speed-boat — his motor 
boat — from trips dowm the .Tames river at Richmond, Virginia. He 
does so for this reason. The river — which varies in width from three 
hundred yards to three miles — is filled with the eguivalent of 
floating roclcs, collision with any one of which, of sufficient size, would 
send him to the bottom. The boat being a speed-boat is a mere racing 
shell with a dynamo — a three-eighths-of-an-inch-thick-p!aiik, with a 
thirty horse power marine engine in her. At twenty miles an hour 
this would be penetrated by a "floating rock" six feet long and six 
or more inches in dameter. "These "floating rocks" are logs, which 
are brought into the river by the numerous creeks which feed, and 
pay tribute to — are tributaries of — the James. We have ordered a 
powerful electric headlight and battery to supply the same, but there 
has been an unconscionable and egregious delay in obtaining same 
from the North: so. until it comes, the author takes a nap in the 



54 PIECES OF EIGHT 

stern of the boat — on the return trip of a sixty mile run of an after- 
noon — sixty miles each way — after holding the wheel during the out- 
ward journey — takes a nap, encircled by a life preserver, ivhen caught 
out after dark, only. Of course the boat carries the regulation bow 
and stern lights, but they, of course, are not strong enough to 
pierce the darkness and disclose the presence of a lurking, "floating 
rock." We have had two collisions after dark so far, but fortunately 
the "rocks" were not large enough to sink the boat. To lessen said 
danger we have given orders to reduce the speed of the boat, after 
dark to ten miles per hour, but the author has a life preserver belted 
on, while his mechanician — at the wheel — has one by his side. This 
last would apply to stokers in the hold of a warship — they need not 
wear life preservers before the furnace, but must have them within in- 
stant reach, with a view to a bolt for life from their heroic inferno. 

Of course this proviso will be useless, unless the German Army 
and Navy turn over a new leaf, cease their evil and unwarlike prac- 
tices of murdering seamen when overboard — as shown in Sonnet 
Three — or butchering boys and ravishing "girls as in Belgium. The 
Germans— to the amazement of mankind — for a race, which is about 
the most painfully, ploddingly, non-inspiredly, and nou-brilliantly 
learned, in the world to-day — from the Kaiser down — proved itself 
but as wax, when placed in the blowpipe of temptation. Therefore. God 
alone knows, what fiends the Germans may continue to prove them- 
selves, when subjected to the — to their non-chivalrous, non-military, 
bush-whacking, marauding, and ravishing souls or jjeor-souls — for it 
strongly looks as though Germans are not blessed with souls — therefore 
God alone knows, what fiends the Germans may continue to prove them- 
selves, when subjected to the — to their soulless natures — fiery tempta- 
tion of hutchering in- cold blood, with machine guns and, revolvers, a 
whole ship's company swimming in the sea! 

October 21st. 1014. 

The News-Leader, Richmond, Va., September 15, 1914. 

ALLIES WILL MAKE PEACE WHEN BERLIN IS TAKEN, 



Britons Hold No Hatred of German People, But Are Determined to 

Destroy Their Cannon Foundry and Root Out Military 

Terrorism Fostered by Mailed War Lord. 

London, September 15. (Special.) — Peace can come only when 
Berlin has fallen and the allies have entered the German capital to 
lay down the terms upon which hostilities shall cease. This is the 
official opinion in London, and it is well known that the British gov- 
ernment is the guiding spirit among the allies. 

The stand of this government regarding reports that Germany might 
listen to mediation proposals is reflected in the following editorial 
at)pearing in the Times to-day: "The allies will go to Berlin to settle 
accounts, not to lay waste the fatherland. They will have this to say 
to the German people: 'This worship of war must cease and the sword 
you have forged must be broken.' 

"Not until the horsemen of the gathering nations ride down Unter 
den, Linden will the German people realize fully that their mad dreams 
of world domination have been shattered forever. The defenders of 
civilization will destroy — but they will not destroy women's virtue, 
nor ancient sanctuaries, nor peaceful homes. They will destroy war- 



PIECES OF BIGHT 55 



ships, arsenals, shipbuilding yards, fortresses — all the paraphernalia 
of Teutonic warfare by which terror has been spread. 

"The expiation of Louvain should be the absolute obliteration not 
of Bonn nor Heidelberg, but of the Erupp works at Essen. 

"The price of peace should be, among other things, the reconstruc- 
tion of new and more beautiful towns and villages upon the ruins of 
innocent and devastated Belgium. 

"Friends of Germany, and all who talk of lasting peace, ought to 
be the first to speed the allies on their way to Berlin. Not until the 
capital is reached will the sword be struck from Germany's hands, 
and not until they see the conquerors in their midst will the Germans 
turn from Treitschke and Nietsche to Luther and Goethe once more." 



WHAT THE liAW REVIEWS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT "THE 
LUNACY L.AAV OF THE WORLD." 

By John Armstrong Chaloner, A. B., A. M., Member of the Bar. 



NORTHEASTERN REPORTER. 

St. Paul, Minn., July, 1907. 

"The Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C., has printed a book on 
'The Lunacy Law of the World,' ^by John Armstrong Chaloner, of the 
same, place. It is an examination of the laws of the States and Terri- 
tories, and of the Six Great powers of Europe, on this subject, and is in. 
terms a very severe arraignment of most of them. It would appear 
that the iniquitous system against which Charles Reade waged war 
has by no means disappeared. People may still be incarcerated in 
insane asylums without notice, and without an opportunity to be 
heard, either in person or by attorney; and once in an asylum, a 
patient has little protection against the keepers. They may be wise, 
and kind, but the instances of cruelty which occasionally reach the 
public indicate that this is not a safe assumption. Mr. Chaloner holds 
a brief for the accused, and puts his case very strongly, but, in view 
of the, cases he cites, it would be impossible to state the matter too 
strongly. He says: 

" 'A survey of the field of Lunacy legislation the world over pre- 
sents to-day an appalling spectacle. It affords, to put it mildly, the 
strongest card in favor of anarchy — of no law — ever laid upon the 
table of world-politics and throws into lamentable relief the fact that 
in about forty per cent, of the States and Territories of the United 
States neither the Bench — with many honourable exceptions — the Bar 
nor the Legislature, can be entrusted with safeguarding that funda- 
mental principle of liberty, the absolute rights of the individual.' 

"The book should awaken public interest in an important matter.' 



THE OHIO LAW BULLETIN. 

Norwalk, Ohio, July 29, 1907. 
Chaloner, Lunacy Law of the World. 

"A criticism, of the practice of adjudging persons incompetent and 
depriving them of their liberties loithout due process of laio, fortified 
by decisons of the courts, is the theme upon which the author has de- 
veloped this interesting and instructive work. The lunacy law of all 
the States of the Union and six of the Great Powers of Europe are 
reviewed, and surprising as it may seem, nearly half of the States and 



56 PIECES OF EIGHT 



Great Britain fail to require notice of the inquisition to be given the 
alleged lunatic or incompetent; twenty-four of the States and Ger- 
many and Great Britain fail to afford him opportunity to appear and 
be heard. The author makes it conclusively appear that there is 
needed revision of these laws. Edited by John Armstrong Chaloner, 
counsellor at law. Published by the Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, 
N. C. 



THE OKLAHOMA LAW JOURNAL. 

Guthrie, Oklahoma, September, 1907. 
"The Lunacy Law of the World, 

By John Armstrong Chaloner. 

Published by the Palmetto Press, 

Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 

This is a volume of nearly four hundred pages, well printed, but 
bound in paper covers — a point always detrimental to the sale as well 
as the dignity of a law book. However, when the contents are care- 
■fully read and reflected upon, it is found one of the best and most 
needed books that has appeared for many years. 

The subject of Lunacy Law in spite of all the legislation we have 
had in other departments, has received little attention. In fact, it is 
little better than tvhen Charles Reade wrote his book, entitled, 'Hard 
Cash.' From, the fact that many mentally deranged persons are in- 
capable of comprehending the nature of the steps taken to place them 
in custody, the custom has become prevalent that no process is needed 
to place them on trial as to their sanity. It is to be remembered 
that in every State of the Union and in fact, in every country of the 
world, fraud has been perpetrated on men and women of means by 
greedy relatives and the unfortunate ones placed in asylums for no 
other purpose than to secure control of their property. And further 
it should be remembered that one once adjudged insane if he cannot 
secure a hearing of his right to restoration through the influence of 
true friends he is forever barred of the right to be heard. He ha^ 
lost the standing of a citizen. There is much in Mr. Chaloner' s booTo 
that should be well studied by every lawyer and legislator as to what 
should be done to sectire the constitutional rights of every one alleged 
to be of unsound mind. The book carefully goes over the law of 
lunacy in the forty-five States and Territories as well as that of the 
leading nations of Europe." 



LANCASTER LAW REVIEW. 

Lancaster, Pa., September 30, 1907. 
"The Lunacy Law of the World, 

By John Armstrong Chaloner, Counsellor at Law. 
Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 
The work is a review of the lunacy laws of the States and Terri- 
tories of this country together with those of Great Britain, France, 
Italy, Germany, Austria and Russia, with a view of showing their de- 
fects — mainly in regard to affording proper protection to the alleged 
lunatic. 

To those of us who have been accustomed to look with compla- 
cency on our lunacy laws, remembering how lunatics were thrown 
into dungeons and chained and tortured but a short time ago. this 



PIECES OF EIGHT 57 



book brings home some startling truths. It shows clearly the dan- 
gers of that class of legislation in force in England and many of our 
States (as our own Act of April 20, 1869, P L., 78), which permits an 
alleged lunatic to he incarcerated upon the certificate of 'two or more 
reputable physicians.' 

The author contends that in lunacy proceedings notice to the al- 
leged lunatic ought to be absolutely essential and that the trial should 
be by jury in the presence of the alleged lunatic; that any other prac- 
tice is a violation of his constitutional rights and dangerous, in that 
it might be used by designing relatives for fraudulent purposes. 

The importance of a jury trial in such cases Jias been recognised 
by Judge Brewster in Com. ex rel. vs. Kirkbride, 2 Brewster, 402. 
The writ of habeas corpus is not a sufficient safeguard. 

In setting forth the importance of allowing the alleged lunatic an 
opportunity to appear, the author says: 

"The test of sanity is a mental test wholly within the power of 
the accused to accomplish and without any witnesses, professional or 
lay, to back him up. Suppose two paid experts in insanity in the pay 
of the other side, swear defendant's mind cannot tell what his past 
history has been — that said defendant's mind is a total blank upon 
the subject. Would that professional and paid for and interested oath 
stand against the defendant's refutation thereof by taking the stand 
and promptly and lucidly giving his past history, provided he were 
afforded his legal privilege of taking the stand in place of being kept 
away from court and having to allow his liberty and property to be 
perjured away from him in his enforced absence?' (Page 217.) 

Collusion would be very difficult to prove. It has been held that 
no presumption arises from the fact that the parties certif j-ing to the 
alleged lunacy were in fact mistaken. Williams vs. Le Bar, 114 Pa., 
149. 

The subject is an important and interesting one. and the book 
shows extensive and careful research. It is forcefully written and car- 
ries conviction.^' 



LAW NOTES. 



Northport, New York, September, 1907. 
"The Lunacy Law of the World, 

By John Armstrong Chaloner, 

Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. 
The writer is assuredly earnest, . . . setting forth the unques- 
tionable, abuses to which the state of the lunacy laws has given rise. 
The exhaustiveness of his research into the question compels ad- 
miration; an author who can work through lunacy laws from the 
time of the Emperor Conrad down to the present." 

Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. 
Bound in Law Buckram; Five Dollars. 



INDEX. 



Page 

Belgians, The 25 

Castles In Spain 31 

Disarmament 4 

Empire, The 11 

Field Marshal, Lord Roberts 29 

"Get Off!" Said General Joffre 7 

German Version Of The Good Samaritan 3 

Kaiser, The 2 

La Belle Alliance 8 

La Russie 23 

La France, 1 15 

La France, II. 16 

La France, III 17 

Les Beiges 24 

Liege 14 

New York American and Evening Journal 19 

Parcae. The 10 

Pax Romana, I. ■ 20 

Pax Romana, II. . . . • 21 

Pax Romana, III 22 

Pig-Sticking 1 

Przemysl 28 

Queen Of The Western World, The 9 

"Revenge! " 27 

Russia 26 

Sunset Hour, The 30 

To The German Army Officers 5 

To Jews and Gentiles, Bond and Free 12 

To Professor Hugo Monsterburg 13 

Twilight 32 

"Unclean! Unclean!" 6 

"War Is Hell" 18 



AI^IQNMKNTT OF SONNKXS. 



Page 

Pig-Sticking 1 

The Kaiser 2 

German Version Of The Good Samaritan 3 

Disarmament 4 

To The German Army Officers 5 

"Unclean! Unclean!" 6 

"Get Off!" Said General Jolfre 7 

La Belle Alliance 8 

The Queen Of The Western World 9 

The Farcae • 10 

The Empire 11 

To Jews and Gentiles, Bond and Free 12 

To Professor Hugo Mon-sterburg 13 

L(i6ge 14i' 

La Prance, 1 15 

La France, II. 16 

La France, III 17 

"War Is Hell" 18 

New York American and Evening Journal 19 

Pax Romana, I. • • 20 

Pax Romana, II 21 

Pax Romana, III 22 

La Russie 23 

Les Beiges 24 

The Belgians 25 

Russia 26 

"Revenge! " 27 

.Przemysl 28 

Field Marshal, Lord Roberts 29 

The Sunset Hour 30 

Castles In Spain 31 

Twilight 32 



